[HN Gopher] Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the fiel...
___________________________________________________________________
Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a
plumber?
Author : wallflower
Score : 357 points
Date : 2022-02-13 17:34 UTC (5 hours ago)
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| spaetzleesser wrote:
| One way to fix this urge is to leave the field and work as a
| plumber, electrician or in factory. Unless you have enough money
| to do it as a hobby most people will quickly see that this is not
| as great as you may think. While in school I used to work in
| construction and factories in the summer months. I quickly
| realized that an engineer job is much nicer and paid way better.
|
| But I have to admit that as a mechanical engineer now working in
| software I really miss touching the result of my work. Nothing
| better than designing something, building it and then being able
| to touch and see it.
| redisman wrote:
| I'm glad I had a real progression unlike most people who do a
| CS degree and then get a high paying job. I did manual min wage
| labor as a teen, then min wage IT work, then barely above that
| "programming" work in my small city, then finally my first real
| programming job and now I'm in the mid-echelons of software in
| a big tech city. Life is good! I still think work
| philosophically sucks for me (FIRE one day..) but I wouldn't
| trade this job for any of the earlier ones - doubly so now that
| I get paid 20-30x more.
| supernova87a wrote:
| Navigator or maybe some kind of specialist for a cargo ship? Or
| maybe harbor pilot (if you could break into that closed industry
| to make bank)
|
| Forest fire water bomber pilot?
|
| On a side note, I always thought it would be a very cool thing if
| there were some kind of exchange program for people with good
| skills wanting to try them out in another field, kind of as a
| rotation. (I originally thought this for academia -- researchers
| who would love to see another field getting to visit for maybe 3
| months or similar) But I guess, what company would be willing to
| participate in such a thing and let their people do it, having to
| pay for the cost...
| Ekaros wrote:
| In general being at sea means long shifts and being away from
| home for long periods. The ships run 24 hours a day, apart from
| when they are waiting or loading and unloading. And pay isn't
| great unless you are at top as Westerner.
| barbazoo wrote:
| For me it's trying as much as possible to get my
| happiness/satisfaction from something that's under my own control
| as much as possible. Being in a trade is the exact opposite of
| that because you're 100% dependent on people telling you what
| they need done. As others have pointed out, every job sucks to
| some degree. And unless you're truly operating in isolation
| you'll always deal with people, most of whom you don't share any
| common ground with. Try being in a trade as a woman, a person of
| color, trans, etc and you'd quickly realized what a privileged
| cushy field we're in. Not saying there isn't discrimination among
| us but our field in my experience tends to be on the more
| progressive, tolerant side of things.
|
| None of what we're doing here matters at all in the grand scheme
| of things. At least the vast majority. We're not contributing to
| anything useful only a broken economic system, we're not making
| the world a better, more sustainable, more peaceful place. It's
| the opposite, the people that contribute more division, get paid
| the most it seems. Once I realized that I was able to steer my
| attention to opportunities that at least contain a sliver of
| something positive, be it supporting movements, clean energy,
| something that on your death bed you could argue didn't make the
| world a worse place. Personally, that's all I think I can do
| because at this point in my life I'm not in a position to make
| any larger positive change by myself on a societal level.
|
| I'm sorry if this is too ranty, I'm just in a very negative
| headspace these days with everything that's going on.
| julian_t wrote:
| I once went to teach a training course to a team at some BigCo,
| and there was one guy who'd switched to software development from
| being a baker. He'd worked up to owning two shops, but the leases
| expired and he couldn't afford what the landlord wanted to renew
| them. His brother was a dev so he thought he'd give it a go.
|
| He loved it - no more being in the shop at 4am getting the day's
| bread ready and still being there at 8pm doing admin. He'd kept
| some of his gear, though, and was the go-to man for wedding cakes
| and fancy patisserie for the company.
| 988747 wrote:
| I'm turning forty this year. My original dream was to get rich
| quick and retire at 30. Then I pushed that to 40. Now I think I
| will need to push it another 3-5 years...
|
| In general I agree with the sentiment: high salary is the only
| nice thing about working in IT. It's simply too much pressure.
| Best you can do is to make your fortune quickly (joining FAANG
| helps, becoming a freelancer is a reasonable alternative in
| Europe), build a house, set up a college fund for kids, and then
| retire, or find yourself a job as a carpenter, of scubadiving
| instructor, or whatever you like, as long as it has nothing to do
| with computers.
| thaw13579 wrote:
| I wonder why avoid computers in early retirement? Is it burnout
| from the grind or a lack of pleasure in the work itself? I
| imaging there are a ton of cool and worthy charitable causes
| that would benefit from the expertise, which they couldn't
| afford to get otherwise.
| numbsafari wrote:
| Let me be frank:
|
| That shit ain't worth it.
|
| Go be an electrician instead.
| kosyblysk666 wrote:
| yes
| watmough wrote:
| No way.
|
| Loving my current position(s) way too much.
|
| But also, if I did leave the field with some cash, I'd probably
| go be a backwoods flight instructor.
| [deleted]
| lawn wrote:
| Sometimes I feel the urge of becoming a teacher, teaching math or
| maybe even programming.
|
| But then I'm reminded of how prviliged I am and how much better
| the working conditions are as a work from home developer is
| compared to a teacher... And the feeling goes away.
|
| Maybe the best is if I could FIRE and then just hold evening
| classes for those who are interested, but I'm not there yet.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| I was a teacher at a local tech institute for mechanical
| engineering. The social contact with the students and the
| variety of things I got to teach was really fun and rewarding.
| Unfortunately, the pay was bad and I couldn't see myself
| staying there for long and in such a high cost of living area.
| ArchitectAnon wrote:
| If you think plumbers don't have undefined requirements and
| random deadlines out of their control then you don't know enough
| about the industry. Most plumbers are juggling about 20 different
| projects plus call-outs and with the chaos in the UK construction
| industry right now, it's very hard for any tradesperson to
| predict where they will be working and what they will be doing
| next week. You will have annoyed people constantly phoning you
| all day to find out when you are going to be at their site.
| However, plumbers are in huge demand at the moment and can
| probably easily invoice more than PS300 per day, it's just a
| question of the building sites being ready for them to work a few
| consecutive days in a row to get those billable hours racked up
| day after day. There are a lot of inefficiencies in project
| scheduling, especially with the currently difficulties.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| The tech domain is so expansive that there is an inability to
| master it which is a core tenant for job satisfaction.
|
| I watch machining videos on YouTube for fun knowing that I'll
| never make the jump.
|
| I occasionally build physical things just so I can have some
| variety in frustrations that help me put my day job frustrations
| into perspective.
| andrewzah wrote:
| So no engineers are satisfied because they can't master the
| entire domain of engineering?
|
| Of course you can attain mastery over certain sections of
| computer science/engineering.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Anecdotally it certainly feels like many engineers are
| experiencing dissatisfaction, often because of lack of
| mastery within their section (cue the "web development moves
| too fast and cycles through too many frameworks and fads"
| articles).
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I think there are degrees of scope, complexity and
| variability. A software engineer is more likely to have the
| world constantly changing under them at a pace that is
| difficult to keep up with.
| jka wrote:
| A lot of it depends, I think, on what it'll be like for people to
| look back on past achievements at age 65+.
|
| If it's a case of "oh, in fact most of my career was (re)building
| things that weren't really required in order to consolidate power
| and to reduce the strength of democratic society and
| institutions", that could be a bad time.
|
| If it's more along the lines of "I genuinely helped to improve
| the lives of a large number of people by assisting them in doing
| what they want to do day-to-day, extending opportunity, access
| and freedom" that could be better.
|
| Plumbing, baking, carpentry, etc seem to be more likely to
| unambiguously fall into the latter, happy category -- although I
| think software can, too.
|
| Regardless, for many of us, a way to opt out of the moral
| quandary is simply to say "oh, well it pays the bills well and is
| not physically demanding".
| andrewzah wrote:
| Occasionally that thought pops up. Then I remember I'm making
| insane amounts of money, from the comfort of my desk in my house.
| At 25 I'm making more than my parents ever did, with a fraction
| of the physical effort.
|
| If I really hated it, I could save up for some time and do
| something else, because again... I'm pulling insane amounts of
| money for software work.
|
| Trades like plumbing, electrical work etc are -hard- work. I
| recognize that I have the privilege of not sacrificing my body
| and health for my income. My biggest concerns are making sure my
| posture is correct and that I take enough walks. Such a hard
| life.
|
| I've noticed that some programmers tend to romanticize things
| like farming or plumbing, and generally speaking not understand
| the hard physical work those people have to go through. It can be
| quite patronizing.
|
| Edit: sitting a desk is not "sacrificing your body". Comparing
| that to the labor that people in trades do is completely detached
| from reality. Obviously there are things like standing desks and
| working out. But in life you have to sit or stand regardless.
| cpsns wrote:
| > I recognize that I have the privilege of not sacrificing my
| body and health for my income.
|
| Sitting for longer periods in any amount is incredibly bad for
| one's health long term, every study on the subject has
| confirmed this.
|
| You are sacrificing your health, just in a different way.
| andrewzah wrote:
| Comparing construction or plumbing work to sitting is
| absolutely ludicrous.
|
| I also use a standing desk anyways, but I am not sacrificing
| my health like my grandfather or father did who had/have
| back/knee and other health issues in their 50s from physical
| labor.
|
| Being able to earn a nice living while sitting at a desk is
| an enormous privilege, and I also get money and healthcare to
| routinely visit doctors anyway.
| Spinnaker_ wrote:
| No kidding. I did concrete for a single summer. Software
| engineering barely counts as work compared to that.
| jjcon wrote:
| Eh didn't it turn out that most of that was drummed out in
| the 2012 era by a few doctors selling books and partnering
| with exercise and standing desk companies? I feel like most
| of the more recent stuff I have read has said, yes get your
| exercise in but sitting itself isn't actually bad, certainly
| not the whole '1 hour of sitting reduces your life by 1 day'
| sort of stuff we heard a decade+ ago.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/21/health/sitting-study-
| partner/...
| jvanderbot wrote:
| My confusion is that "sitting" is confounded with "never
| exercising". If you exercise 5m/hr for 16hrs (and sleep 8),
| you have accumulated a huge amount of sitting time, but
| also a really big amount of exercise time. Nobody does
| that, but what if we did?
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| I read somewhere that somebody did some study with god
| knows what methodology (people like to use current-world
| HG communities, not representative of ancestry) and
| decided that our ancestors walked about 12mi/day. That's
| about 3-4h of walking daily. We have like 280k years of
| that selection criteria. But also we came from apes, so
| we're sorta shitty at this upright stuff.
|
| An aside: I also just loathe ergonomic design, I'm never
| comfortable in anything other than a recliner or laying
| on a couch or bed. I'm wholly convinced that chairs are
| the way they are because " _they 've always been that
| way_" with tables and desks following suit. It's
| unfortunate that better designs haven't caught on, aren't
| readily available, and tend to be inordinately expensive.
| What I'd really like to see is a practical true to form
| holistic ergonomic design instead of this weird
| traditionally inspired clusterfuck with its productivity
| centric model.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| > It's unfortunate that better designs haven't caught on,
| aren't readily available, and tend to be inordinately
| expensive.
|
| Do you have any links to examples of these different
| designs? After using a bunch of different chairs, I'm
| seriously considering just repurposing my piano stool,
| even though I'll lose all the back support.
|
| I just can't find anything sustainably comfortable and
| supportive.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| "The trades" each come with occupational hazards of their
| own. These occupational hazards are sometimes much worse than
| sitting down. Besides, op clearly stated the intent to walk
| more.
|
| For example, would you accept a 1.4x (+40%) chance of brain
| cancer? Vs sedentary peoples who have 2x chance of diabetes
| and +14% cardiovascular disease? (and sedentary means sitting
| + not exercising after work!).
|
| I'd argue diabetes is easier to avoid through other life
| changes. I"m confused about whether "sitting" means "never
| exercising", and articles that talk about "sedentary"
| lifestyles are not very helpful.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1035250/
|
| https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M14-1651
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| I set a timer that goes off every 45 minutes. At which point
| I'll walk around for a couple of minutes and do some push ups
| and pull ups.
|
| In the mornings I walk my daughter to school: 25 minutes
| exercise.
|
| At lunch time I'll take a 30 minute walk.
|
| There's no reason to be unfit as a software developer.
| arbol wrote:
| Sitting in a seat day after day is sacrificing your body and
| health for work. You may not notice this now but you will in 10
| years time.
|
| https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/sitting-time-linked-to-hi...
| dsego wrote:
| > I recognize that I have the privilege of not sacrificing my
| body and health for my income
|
| Oh, sitting in a chair in front a screen for hours on end does
| wonders for the body. It's still early, you'll appreciate it in
| ~10 years.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| But you don't have to to ruin your body. You can get a
| standing desk and a gym membership (remember, you have money)
| and stay perfectly healthy. Crawling in tight spaces, on the
| other hand, will ruin your body and is not necessarily
| avoidable.
| andrewzah wrote:
| You and the other commenter have got to be joking.
|
| My point was that office-work is far away preferable to daily
| physical labor. I'll take sitting over throwing out my back,
| blowing out my knees and having constant pain. Not to mention
| the hazards of working with chemicals or industrial equipment
| or electricity, and so on.
|
| Of course there are options that I use like exercising and
| standing desks. My point was that this is a significantly
| better situation health-wise than working in trades. And that
| I have the privilege of doing that.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > My point was that office-work is far away preferable to
| daily physical labor.
|
| It's not. I've never been fitter than when I was doing
| physical work. The problem was the pay and the
| powerlessness at the workplace (e.g. awful hours with no
| notice, management compromises on safety, the expectation
| that you'll keep silent when management cuts corners or
| cheats the clients/customers, etc.)
|
| The reason I stopped doing physical work is because
| physical workers are disrespected by the world, and your
| bosses would rather shut down and leave the industry than
| to pay you a dollar more. After I decided I would never
| work with my hands again, jobs paid a lot more. The less
| you actually do, the more holy you get. One day I'll just
| sit in the lotus position, floating two inches above my
| prayer mat, giving cryptic pronouncements about what other
| people should be doing. By then, I'll have billions.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| My best mate is a plumber - it is very hard work.
|
| Laying sewage pipes - fixing sewage blockages - replacing hot
| water cylinder in the roof in the heat of summer (our homes don't
| have basements).
|
| Dealing with staff issues - people not paying their accounts.
| lolinder wrote:
| This comment and its top reply are dead on:
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/sm54ri/a...
|
| No job is going to get you away from unreasonable people with
| unreasonable expectations, and most trades introduce a bunch of
| other unpleasant things that you'd have to deal with.
|
| It's all tradeoffs. Someone may legitimately prefer the stresses
| of a trade to the stresses of working in software, and that's
| great for them. But it's not an _objectively_ easier path: if it
| were, plumbers would be much less expensive.
| mrwnmonm wrote:
| What about teaching? Or becoming a Youtuber?
| kd0amg wrote:
| Teaching isn't likely to get you away from unreasonable
| people with unreasonable expectations.
| civilized wrote:
| Work is like driving. Everywhere you go, there will be
| unreasonable, dangerous, stressful drivers.
|
| Disproportionately they will be driving BMWs and Audis.
|
| Sorry, it had to be said.
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| It had to be said because it's largely correct!
|
| https://www.financialexpress.com/auto/car-
| news/psychopaths-d...
| [deleted]
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| That's why I don't own a car. :P
| rudasn wrote:
| There's a study for that :
| https://www.scrapcarcomparison.co.uk/blog/which-drivers-
| are-...
| civilized wrote:
| Damn, I nailed it. I had no idea, this was purely based on
| personal experience.
| artemonster wrote:
| I like how in our progressive society it is absolutely
| frowned upon to invoke any association between observable
| societal statistics and, say, race/gender, but its okay to
| bash BMW/audi drivers. So, user civilized, why is it okay for
| you to generalize? And why exactly you were sorry? (I am
| aware that this is a tangent discussion to the original post,
| but it may be an interesting one)
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| I do think that's a pretty interesting point. It's a weird
| move to sweep under the rug. I guess you could argue that
| having a BMW is a choice, and it has associated
| stereotypes, which we can infer is sort of like joining a
| club.
|
| race/gender are probabilistic and unalterable, one doesn't
| necessarily elect to inherit the stereotypes associated
| with race/gender. You're essentially being delegated
| expectations that may or may not be in alignment with
| personal values.
|
| There are definitely double-standards in play though, a
| sort of socio-cognitive warfare, I suppose.
| artemonster wrote:
| I am unsure whether the (im)mutability of a qualifier
| plays a role. For example, religion is a choice, but
| making generalized derogatory statements about certain
| religious groups is not okay either. You can try it with
| the pattern of "civilized" user: """Everywhere you go,
| there will be _men hitting their wivers_.
| Disproportionately they will be ..." and say sorry
| afterwards. You will be making a statistically correct
| statement, but you will be flagged and IRL punched in the
| face for saying that. But somehow saying that about BMW
| drivers is still allright?
| kube-system wrote:
| Religion is a choice in the same way citizenship is a
| choice. Sometimes it is a choice, often you're born into
| it, and you often have to meet qualifications to change
| it, and some of those may be impossible to meet. And your
| social environment may impose some significant
| expectations on you.
| artemonster wrote:
| now you're trying to argue about a specifics of the
| example I've given. Its tangent to the main question:
| whether stereotyping on something that is a choice or
| inherent is different? If you say that it is, can you
| please elaborate?
| kube-system wrote:
| Yes, it is different, but not in a boolean sort of way.
| It is impolite to make fun of people for something that
| is not their fault... and generally speaking, the degree
| to which it wasn't a choice (and the degree to which it
| impacts someone's life experience) contributes to the
| degree of impoliteness.
| artemonster wrote:
| making fun of a group != inferring generalizing
| statements about a group. I am completely with you about
| "making fun" part, but this concrete example is different
| openknot wrote:
| The comedic term is "punching up" [0]. It's generally more
| acceptable to make jokes about the (presumably) wealthy
| owners of BMWs and Audis, versus "punching down" by making
| fun of people who comparatively face more disadvantages.
|
| [0] Urban Dictionary:
| https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Punch%20Up
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| If we use the punching metaphor, in either case one is
| committing an act of "violence", which I think most
| people would acede is negative at least in the large
| scheme of things.
| openknot wrote:
| Violence has different definitions, according to the
| Oxford English Dictionary [0].
|
| One is: "1. a. The deliberate exercise of physical force
| against a person, property, etc.; physically violent
| behaviour or treatment; (Law) the unlawful exercise of
| physical force, intimidation by the exhibition of such
| force." Another definition is: "4. Vehemence or intensity
| of emotion, behaviour, or language; extreme fervour;
| passion."
|
| That the first definition is inherently negative is a
| separate philosophical discussion (as quick counter-
| examples where violence may not be negative, consider the
| violence of a fencing or martial arts match). However, it
| is clear that "punching up" in this case refers to
| definition four. I believe that most would agree that
| intensity of emotion or language is not inherently or
| necessarily a negative behaviour.
|
| [0] Current quoted version is paywalled, but older 1989
| edition for reference (may have differences from the
| quoted version): https://www.oed.com/oed2/00277885
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| There's a big difference between stereotyping based on
| something someone was born with and stereotyping based on
| something they chose to buy.
| artemonster wrote:
| That is my problem: I don't see that difference. Its
| still stereotyping. Can you explain how it makes
| different to stereotype based on choice or some inherent
| immutable property? Its the majority of asshole careless
| drivers (inherent immutable property) that _choose_ to
| buy a BMW that make up a statistic. Still the stereotype
| selects that group, not by their choice but by and
| because of their property (being an asshole careless
| driver).
| grogenaut wrote:
| I can afford a BMW, I've chosen not to buy one. In 08, I
| technically bought one in a Mini. But it was better MPG
| (very good for the time), fun, and cute. My buddy has a
| fast BMW, 2x the price. He got real mad when he drove the
| mini when he realized that the grand tour guys are right,
| hot hatches are pretty fun. He was blowing through $1500 in
| tires every year or so as well. I told him he got the bmw
| cause he's a dbag and a defense lawyer. He agreed that he
| is a dbag and he needed to show off as a lawyer. Every one
| of my friends who has a BMW would agree they care about
| appearences and are a bit of a dbag, I have about 10 from
| college/highschool/the neighborhood. So I'd be making fun
| of myself or my friends.
|
| Personally I want multiple fun to drive vehicles. But I'd
| also rather have a CNC mill sharing space a motorcycle in
| the garage instead of a car I'm wiping with a diaper for
| the same price.
|
| It's also quite common and a source of fun in many
| communities to make fun of the other brand. Many of these
| jokes are great at summarizing why people buy a thing. Ford
| vs Chevy. It can also get bit annoying and detract from
| what would otherwise be a useful conversation. "Fix Or
| Repair Daily" isn't very helpful. However "yamaha bike
| owners ask which valve head shims to buy, bmw owners ask
| which dealer is the most reputable" is a good description
| of the mindset for those respective brands, and the what
| the owners are looking for. Case in point, many BMWs only
| have an oil low sensor. How low? drain it and measure the
| volume, no dip stick. This carried over to my mini (bmw
| made), when the low oil light came on it was at .75 of 4
| quarts, basically empty and damaging itself, and the
| dipstick is almost unreadable except in bright sunlight,
| but it's sure stylish.
| pwython wrote:
| Wow. You're all over the place with this comment dude.
|
| > "Every one of my friends who has a BMW would agree they
| care about appearences and are a bit of a dbag, I have
| about 10..."
|
| I would seriously reconsider who is the dbag among your
| 10 BMW friends. The people that care about what car
| someone drives are the ones venting about their buddies
| spending money on tires and quarts of oil online. Unless
| I missed the part where they made fun of your self-
| described "cute" Mini Cooper. Some people like quick
| cars, or cars that look nice.
| grogenaut wrote:
| Almost of these comments are from my friend about the his
| own driving habits with the car. It's his money he can
| blow through tires if he wants. He's the one calling
| himself a dbag. I think he's got redeeming qualities and
| some insecurities, it's why he's still a friend.
| pwython wrote:
| So it's 1 friend and not 10 that are self-proclaimed
| dbags. Well I guess add me to that list.
|
| - BMW M4 dbag owner who drives like a normal person.
| grogenaut wrote:
| Me to one of the others when looking at college photos:
| "is that an affliction shirt"... Them "yeah I was kinda a
| dbag post college till I got married". me "wait is that a
| wristband, were you watching UFC pay per view"... them
| "actually, yes".
|
| Do you need me to enumerate all of them for you? :)
| civilized wrote:
| I take care not to violate society's statistical taboos.
| artemonster wrote:
| Ah, allright, I think I got the pattern. Next time
| someone wants to: """Everywhere you go, there will be
| {insert derogatory but also statistically backed pattern}
| Disproportionately they will be {insert your -ist
| qualifier}""" You just have to say sorry and it will be
| okay?
| civilized wrote:
| Have you considered what you personally believe is right?
|
| Why go around being an enforcer for social rules you
| don't even know if you believe in?
| artemonster wrote:
| I personally believe in statistics and I believe you
| cannot use them to make derogatory generalizations. I
| mean racists REALLY love to pull out crime statistics out
| of their pockets in justification of their views. And,
| frankly, its not about my beliefs right now and enforcing
| of societal rules, its about you making derogatory
| generalizations and thinking that its okay, because
| "statistics" and because you've said sorry.
| civilized wrote:
| Well, I don't believe what you believe. I think you have
| an overly general moral rule that you think is necessary
| for consistency, but it's not really, and it's just your
| personal belief.
|
| Your belief implies it is improper to use statistics to
| describe morally salient human behavior in any way,
| unless the conclusion is that there is no variation. I
| think that's silly and intellectually impoverishing.
| Groups have different average behavior and I don't see
| the point in blinding myself to that.
|
| We all know that averages don't determine an individual,
| and we all know that some generalizations should be
| avoided, but that doesn't imply some broad fatwa,
| completely irrespective of context, against noting broad
| variations in group behavior.
|
| The prosecutor attitude is very entertaining though. Feel
| free to keep doing that.
| artemonster wrote:
| I personally dont require that consistency, I was merely
| asking WHY there is a difference in treatment of the same
| method (making generalized statements about group
| behaviour) when applied to different qualifiers. And yes,
| just as you've said, maintaining that consistency does
| imply that you suddenly can't use any statistics at all.
|
| Point taken on "prosecutor attitude", sorry about that.
| riding "moral high horse" got to my head.
| civilized wrote:
| It sounds like you don't believe what you just said you
| did? I'm genuinely asking what _you_ believe, as opposed
| to what you assert for the sake of argument.
|
| For me, it's not an easy topic but I would say when
| negative generalizations escalate to exclusion and
| dehumanization, that's probably where to draw the line.
|
| I know some people with Audis and I don't think worse of
| them or anything like that. It's just a funny thing
| that's hard to ignore after a while on the road.
| artemonster wrote:
| Thank you for the insight on where you draw the line,
| that explains a lot. Still, a hard terrain to navigate on
| when you can say something and when you can't, even if
| you make correct statements backed up by data. Just to be
| clear we're on the same page: I've made absolutely same
| observation about other bmw drivers. and we, humans, do
| exactly that: observe and generalize.
|
| Regarding my personal beliefs, as I've stated above "I
| personally believe in statistics and I believe you cannot
| use* them to make derogatory* generalizations"
|
| 1. regarding "use": you cannot use specifically
| statistics/data to justify any *-ist remark. "I hate bmw
| drivers because most of them are assholes on the road",
| an example of that (not what you said!)
|
| 2. regarding "derogatory": you can(and should!) use
| statistics to do (just) generalizations, i.e. in a
| context of talking about group behaviour. "most of bmw
| drivers are agressive and dangerous drivers, as shown by
| this data" is a perfectly fine statement.
|
| My problem is that you can say that sort of statements
| about certain group of drivers, but if you would have
| pulled up a similar argument and used (for example) PoC
| and crime rates, you would have been torn to pieces by
| everyone. And for me, on the surface, the statement and
| the structure would be absolutely the same (and it is
| STILL not escalated to exclusion and dehumanization). So
| whats the difference? And why different treatment? People
| above are arguing that buying BMW its a choice and using
| inherent (immutable) properties (i.e. race/gender) is
| different for the case of stereotyping, but I cannot see
| the key difference that makes okay to do one and not okay
| to do another.
| civilized wrote:
| On the difference between making these generalizations
| along racial lines vs other things - it mostly comes down
| to the fact that our ancestors ruined the fun. After
| humanity had used certain type of statements to justify
| mass dehumanization, slavery, Holocaust, etc., people
| don't want to see that happen again. Then it's just a
| question of how big a red circle we want to draw around
| that kind of talk. Most people found a simple ban on
| racial generalizations relatively intuitive and
| practical. I'd prefer a more freewheeling culture but
| it's above my pay grade at this point.
|
| Side point - in general an important thing to remember
| here is the big, big difference between P(A|B) and
| P(B|A). It could be the case that _all_ aggressive
| drivers I ever encounter are BMW drivers, and yet the
| rate of aggressive BMW drivers could be very low and of
| little practical predictive value on any individual BMW
| driver (e.g. 1% of BMW drivers versus 0% for non-BMW
| drivers).
|
| People are already bad at distinguishing an implication
| and its converse, and they're quite a bit worse at the
| statistical version of the same.
|
| Arguably this is a reason we should keep our
| generalizations to ourselves, even if they're accurate. A
| lot of people will take them to mean a lot more than they
| do.
|
| It's not my style, but I do recognize the risk.
| artemonster wrote:
| thank you for your explanations
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| You can choose whether to buy a BMW or not?
| artemonster wrote:
| but having one does not make you an asshole driver
| hodgesrm wrote:
| Hey! What's wrong with BMWs? We have two of them. Both
| diesels. The gas mileage is slightly below amazing. (Though
| my lawyer says you should always buy them used, never new.
| He's very good on life advice in general.)
| blowfish721 wrote:
| BMW's are great cars, used to have one. But somehow their
| turn signals never seem to work.
| civilized wrote:
| The wheel and the gas work super well though. Maybe too
| well.
| granshaw wrote:
| Not sure if that was a sarcastic reply but if not You're
| missing the point - which was that these fools will often
| be better paid and more well off than you :)
| nixgeek wrote:
| They're incredible, in slow traffic I have no issue fitting
| into a space which is only 12" bigger than the BMW is in
| length terms, and everyone around me is impressed,
| particularly the driver behind, they often gesture
| congratulations about these feats
|
| In all seriousness though after a few years driving a Tesla
| it is a stark contrast, the BMW's are actually well-
| manufactured, very quiet in the cabin, tactile controls
| instead of touchscreens. I'd forgotten what a good car
| behaved and looked like instead of an early-adopter
| plastic-fantastic interior and technology stack. Really do
| think with "Big Auto" starting to figure out bEV and things
| like F-150 Lightning, BMW iX and more coming to the market,
| Tesla is not looking like a solid safe equity to be holding
| in a 5 year time horizon.
| civilized wrote:
| You're making a surprisingly persuasive case. Maybe it's
| time for me to become an asshole too.
| [deleted]
| 01100011 wrote:
| An old, cynical engineer I once worked with left me with two
| indelible quotes:
|
| - If it was fun they'd charge money at the door.
|
| - If you can't write it down you can't do it.
|
| You can argue about the accuracy of those ideas, but more or
| less I've found them to be true.
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| > If it was fun they'd charge money at the door.
|
| I've told people that at my work and had it said back to me
| later.
|
| "If it was fun, it wouldn't be work." Also, I leave after 40
| hours each week because there will never be a day when the
| work ends early. If we run out of work, it's because the
| company is sinking.
| sneakymichael wrote:
| "If you can't write it down you can't do it." - elaborate?
| itronitron wrote:
| I think this might have two, maybe more meanings. The first
| is that if the person asking you to do something won't put
| it in writing, then it's probably not legal and therefore
| you can't do it. The second is that if you haven't thought
| through something well enough to write it down (the problem
| and the solution) then you haven't thought about it long
| enough to have found a solution.
| ByThyGrace wrote:
| Maybe it means that the ability to spell out the entirety
| of the work process is an indication of the ability to
| fulfill the task.
| openknot wrote:
| >- If it was fun they'd charge money at the door.
|
| I'm not sure if 'fun' is the right descriptor, but certain
| fields of work with relatively high prestige and supply of
| applicants but relatively low credential requirements (in
| comparison to credentialed professions like law or medicine)
| pay little or almost charge money.
|
| Examples include journalism (very low paying, limited jobs in
| North America), museum curation (requiring many years of low-
| paid, unpaid internship; most people can't afford it), and
| many creative fields (e.g. graphic designers are, in my view,
| paid very low comparative to the skill and creativity they
| bring; creative writers often have to pay to submit to a
| literary journal; and video game developers are notoriously
| overworked/underpaid, compared to other types of software
| developers).
| rakamotog wrote:
| I opened comments to reply the same comment from Reddit. Grass
| always feels greener on the other side.
| psbp wrote:
| The levels of stress aren't that much different, but there's
| something more practical about the stresses of labor jobs that
| make them a bit more manageable in my experience. Only in
| software jobs have I had persistent, constant stress that never
| seems to let up and consumes my weekends. It's a skill to
| manage it, but it's definitely part of the job.
| nelblu wrote:
| 100% this. I have been renovating my house for the past few
| months, room by room. It is fun on some days and not so much on
| other days. It can even be stressful when you can't figure out
| certain corners, or end up with leaks etc. I have contemplated
| started renovation as a side business, but having spoken to
| independent contractors I have figured it isn't all that much
| lucrative. There are even assholes who won't pay you at all.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Stresses of a trade? Never "plumbed" professionally, so I can't
| speak from experience. But from other non-software jobs I have
| had, I know it was easy to "leave work at work".
|
| Software development followed me home, lived in my brain 24/7.
| It also caused a good deal of stress I was unaware of at the
| time.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think the ease of leaving work at work is probably a better
| proxy for age and commitment to your job. If you know it is a
| short term job or career, it is easy to leave there.
|
| If you need the job, you start to care. Even with manual
| labor, there are problems that didn't get solved that need to
| be worked out before 7 AM tomorrow. I would say it is even
| harder to leave it at work. If a pipe breaks, and water is
| pouring out, sleeping on it isnt an option
| bartread wrote:
| I agree. I work in tech and, outside of work, I'm refurbishing
| my house. I'm enjoying the refurbishment but would I do a trade
| as a full time job? Hell no.
|
| Crawling around in my loft sistering joists is satisfying work
| but also, if it were to become the kind of thing I did over a
| long period of time, would 100% wreck my knees.
|
| And that's just one downside. There are plenty more: e.g., all
| the ancillary guff you have to do (same as you have with
| contracting really), and then dealing with the general public
| and having people phone you at all hours of the day and night
| looking for estimates and quotes. No thanks.
| user3939382 wrote:
| Get yourself a pair of these
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001P30BQE/
|
| I use them _all_ the time. Cable management under desks, tile
| work, electrical. I wonder how I went so long without them.
| ElKrist wrote:
| I share your view about making estimates and quotes.
|
| I get contractors to my house to help me renovate. It's just
| standard practice to get multiple tradesmen (>=3) to make a
| quote for the same job. I do that whenever the job is above
| $5000. I assume they must have a lot of other clients who do
| the same for lower thresholds too. I don't know the margins
| in each trade but I guess at least half of the quote is
| costs?
|
| For the transport, the time on-site, the time to make a quote
| (depends a lot on the job).. I believe they each spend at
| least half a day on this. Then you add various time-consuming
| items like phone calls, people canceling appointments, people
| changing their minds about what they want, time to chase
| unpaid invoices, dealing with other tradesmen on some
| projects... All of this for a 1/3 chance of getting the job ?
|
| Clearly some tradesmen are doing very well, but let's not
| pretend it's easy. As a contractor in software, I realized
| quickly I could and would only bill on a time-based approach.
| I've gone through the hassle of making a quote for a project
| with a lot of uncertainties and spanning over multiple
| months. At the end the client played with my weakness of
| being still quite young. He was older and much more
| experienced in legal & contract matters so he kept adding
| items pretending my contract was not fulfilled otherwise.. I
| ended up OK but would never go back to that anymore
|
| Now I only have to negotiate once or twice a year (with my
| latest and ongoing client it's been multiple years so even
| better) when tradesmen have to do that multiple times a week
| brightball wrote:
| Yep. I got burned out at one point and got my real estate
| license. I was going to go into commercial real estate and
| build a residential website in my spare time.
|
| Good grief what a scheme that entire field is. If I wanted
| access to residential MLS data I was going to have to be a
| residential realtor. To be a residential realtor you have to
| work for a broker who will charge you monthly for the pleasure.
| You have to put the name of the brokerage on any site that uses
| the data even if you pay for it yourself. You also have to pay
| for each MLS you want to access.
|
| If you want to start your own brokerage you have to get a
| brokerage license. To do that you have to have your real estate
| license for 3 years and take the brokerage class. There's
| nothing you actually have to do during that 3 years other than
| maintain your license.
|
| Seeing the profession from the inside was eye opening and I've
| been extremely happy getting to enjoy being in an unlicensed
| profession ever since.
| scythe wrote:
| The National Association of Realtors donated $44M to
| political candidates last year, the second-largest
| contributor overall.
|
| https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-spenders
| cletus wrote:
| It's worth noting that these skilled trades (eg plumbers,
| electricians, carpenters) have _wildly_ different experiences in
| different countries.
|
| In the US they aren't actually paid that well, particularly
| compared to software engineering (in the US).
|
| But go to Australia and you'll get a vastly different experience.
| For one, just being a plumber is _strictly_ government
| controlled. You need a license that requires a four year
| apprenticeship. There are pros and cons to this system but you
| will generally find that the base level of skill and competence
| of any Australian tradesmen will be far higher than that of many
| other countries.
|
| I had a Australian friend who was a plumber in the UK where you
| can be a plumber by just calling yourself a plumber. The stories
| of incompetence he'd tell were shocking.
|
| Trades in Australia earn more than software engineers do and will
| generally have a much better standard of living, straight up.
| It's one reason why I, as a software engineer, moved from
| Australia to the US. If you want to be a plumber, you may want to
| go the other way, assuming you're willing and able to get
| certified.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| >The grass IS greener on the CS side of things though. There
| literally is no denying it. We see a hyper focus of the bad on
| here but if I'm being frank, many people on here went into CS as
| their first Job and have nothing to compare it to. You're not
| going to find another broad career field that gives you the same
| financial freedom for time invested in learning your field. Pick
| up a hobby if you're missing that salt of the earth feeling too
| much. Doing that shit to barely live in many instances is not the
| same feeling as having it as a hobby.
|
| I'm positioning myself to be able to take a 3 month vacation once
| every 2 years or so. Since I really want to travel outside the US
| working remote outright is a bit harder, but I could live in the
| US Virgin islands, or Hawaii right now while keeping my amazing
| job.
|
| Not having to move, even after getting a major pay bump last year
| was a giant perk. I also make enough so I can just not work , i'd
| move into a cheaper place but I don't need to work for a good
| while.
|
| Compared to real America, where working class people skip
| medicine. I can explain it this way, I have a very treatable
| illness. For a very nominal amount of money, less than I spend on
| a night out, I'm able to stay healthy. If I was poor I wouldn't
| be able to afford my meds. Even with Medicare, how do I get to
| the doctor ? That means taking time off work, that means spending
| 100$ on an Uber round trip.
|
| Software Development is VERY VERY easy.
| redisman wrote:
| A lot of engineers also fail to see that they could just do
| less and leave on time every day and actually use their
| "unlimited" vacation! You won't get rewarded for the extra
| stress and effort so just stop doing it and set expectations
| accordingly.
| xdennis wrote:
| > plumber/electrician/brickie
|
| None of those. But I would like to be carpenter or machinist.
|
| I do often dream of moving back to Romania, to a hamlet in the
| mountains and building a wooden house like Mr. Chickadee (
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TcARfChhbE ).
|
| But I'd never do it because I'm greedy and don't take risks.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I'm a software engineer who does his own plumbing and his own
| electrical. Example projects: * rewire 1920's
| three story house with romex instead of knob & tube *
| install 6.6kW ground mount PV arrays and connect to grid *
| replumb two kitchens and three bathrooms * install water
| softener (all copper, dozens of required brazed joints)
|
| I love doing that stuff (carpentry and cabinet building too). But
| ... a couple of times I've made the mistake of agreeing to help
| others on projects like the one's I've done for myself. Mistake?
| Well, absolutely. Doing work like this for other people is
| completely and utterly different from working on your own
| projects. Despite loving the work itself, I would never, ever
| want to do this for other people, even for good income.
| it_does_follow wrote:
| > Doing work like this for other people is completely and
| utterly different from working on your own projects.
|
| To be fair this same logic likely is the source of stress for a
| lot of software engineers. Loving to program and programming
| for other people for a living initially seems like a brilliant
| way to make a living. For plenty of people it is, but for some
| what programming for money looks like and programming for
| passion look like can be so different as to be depressing.
|
| The hardest part of software engineers in this situation is the
| money is really good and, all things considers, the job is
| quite cushy. However having your passion drained by your
| profession still can be an awful feeling, and that can be
| magnified by the fact that there's no easy solution.
|
| For me personally I resolved this by realizing and fully
| embracing that the programming projects I like to do need to be
| in a completely separate part of my mind that the ones I'm paid
| to do.
|
| By day I sling mediocre code on arguably useless things because
| I need to pay the bills, by night I work on a separate set of
| interesting problems that are related to the day time ones only
| insofar as they technically involve writing code. If I get a
| cool insight at work, great, but I've learned to leave my
| passion at home when I check into work.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| To bring it back to the premise of this entire website: this
| is a reason why entrepreneurship becomes a recourse for some
| dissatisfied engineers. Startups, small-scale consultancies,
| side projects are all ways to code the programs they want to
| code.
| redisman wrote:
| I don't think that's a good escape. I tried owning my
| business and I hated it 10x more than being just a
| engineer. Instead of spending 70% of my hours doing what I
| like it became more like 30%
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I suppose I am both lucky and rare: I get to experience the
| "I do what I want to when I want to how I want to" for both
| my programming and construction work. A useful insight, I
| hadn't connected them in that way before.
| Cederfjard wrote:
| Out of curiosity, what programming work do you do that's
| both so free and pays the bill? Do you sell a successful
| indie product or something?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| https://ardour.org/
| redisman wrote:
| That's what I always thought about programming. So fun when you
| do it as a hobby and meh when you're 10+ years into building
| business requirements
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Yeah - I wonder about the age / experience level of
| commentors in this thread. If you had told me in my 20's
| about burnout (and I'm pretty sure people did tell me), I'd
| have said I love tech too much and it'll never happen to me.
| Now in my 30's it's a struggle. I think the last decade was
| pretty rough too, perhaps if I was a bit older and gotten
| into tech professionally in the 90's it might have been more
| of a fun ride, but it's also possible that's just nostalgia.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| I worked in a daycare for a while when I was young; I really
| liked being a scout leader and figured I might want to do
| something like this for a living. I didn't like it very much:
| turns out that a few hours on saturday is not quite the same
| thing as 8 hours every day.
|
| I think in general "doing this for a hobby and fun" and "doing
| this for a living" are two entirely different things. Many
| people love to cook as a hobby, but being a chef in a
| restaurant is a completely different thing. Years ago I had a
| friend who loved to drive trucks as a hobby; I never understood
| the appeal myself, but he just loved the feeling of driving a
| truck. He left his teaching career to become a truck driver and
| in a matter of months ended up hating it (and he ended up going
| back to being a teacher).
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Some years ago I had a friend who agreed to do some tile work
| for some other mutual friends. Midway through, I was at the
| "client's" house talking with them, and they were complaining
| (not bitterly, but perplexedly): "We just don't get it, Steve
| finishes and says he'll be back in the morning but then he
| doesn't show up for 5-10 days". I shared in their amazement -
| it seemed so rude, so unnecessary. Why would you do that?
|
| A few years rolled by and I found myself doing construction
| stuff for friends. "See you in the morning" I would say as I
| left, and then find myself returning a week later. There's
| even a situation now where I've left an absurdly simple final
| task helping one of my neighbors with some minor repairs ...
| I think I told her 3-4 months ago that I'd be back in 2 days.
|
| I don't really understand why this happens, but it did give
| me some insight into a whole extra layer that is required
| from you when doing work for other people: you have to go
| back, tomorrow, even, over and over until it is done.
|
| Now this certainly applies to any regular (well, contract?)
| employment too, but there is something different about
| construction that I think requires a different kind of
| personal character to enable you to fulfill the implicit
| obligations.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| Ah yes, the infamous builders.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0QxQoOInV0
| rascul wrote:
| > Despite loving the work itself, I would never, ever want to
| do this for other people, even for good income.
|
| This is pretty much how I feel about IT work nowadays. I've
| done it in the past, nowadays I repair rental houses.
| xeromal wrote:
| When I retire, I want to have a little coffee truck or stand and
| just go around making random coffees.
| abeppu wrote:
| > Instead of my current career path where I'm having to
| constantly re-prioritize, put out fires, report to multiple leads
| with different agendas, scope and build things that have never
| been done, ect.
|
| > Maybe I'm misguided but in other fields one becomes a master of
| their craft over time. In CS/data science, I feel like you are
| forever a junior because your experience decays over time.
|
| I get where this person is coming from, but:
|
| - Improving at the things in the first list is part of mastery,
| unfortunately.
|
| - A lot of old experience is still valuable. But one needs to be
| able to transfer/translate the important lessons to new contexts
| as tools, frameworks and languages change.
| throwaway135711 wrote:
| In fleeting moments of madness, maybe. But aside from that, of
| course not! We're so unbelievably lucky to be able to do things
| that we're good at, most of us enjoy (to some extent), and also
| be paid eye-watering amounts of money.
|
| It's pretty easy to forget how low the median income really is
| when one's social group is exclusively tech or other professional
| occupations (lawyers, doctors, etc). Meeting somebody who's doing
| physical labour 40-60 hours a week only to make 25k USD or
| whatever puts things into perspective really quick.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "also be paid eye-watering amounts of money."
|
| Thats not really true outside US
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| It is in the UK
| enronmusk wrote:
| What makes you say that? Outside of contracting and a few
| elite firms in London, being a developer in the UK is like
| being an accountant -- nothing special.
| barbazoo wrote:
| It obviously depends on where you live and what you do in
| your job and how much you work and how hard. I'd argue though
| that, to say it in OP's words, most of us should get watery
| eyes every time we see our paychecks given how much time we
| spend actually working, what the work environment is and what
| that work entails. We're so incredibly lucky it's hard to
| fathom.
| jbirer wrote:
| I have worked as a steel worker in a construction site. The pay
| was shit but I got a really nice toned body, good skin, girls
| looking at me, all day banter in the workplace and parties
| afterward, I went from being a depressed anxious nerd to a
| talkative hot dude in about 7 months. Sometimes I wonder if I
| should go back but I am earning 10 times more than the people
| around me which allows me to travel (before covid) and have
| almost anything I want, it's a hard decision.
| matthewaveryusa wrote:
| So yes, I bought a fixer upper 2 years ago at the beginning of
| the pandemic because I had an existential moment where I was fed
| up with the seemingly futility and abstractness of software
| development. Turns out physical labor is even more futile after
| the novelty wears out.
| redisman wrote:
| I used to clean the office/locker rooms of a concrete prefab
| factory while in school for some income. Talk about
| existential. Literally the same thing every night and a
| seemingly pointless task since it would be the same mess within
| minutes when the next shift walked in.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| I think the software world has to slow down anyway. Now there is
| software anywhere build in and has just to work. Things could
| last for 50 years before software. Now everything need updates
| all the time because things are unfinished.
|
| I'm in industrie automation and everything with software gets
| worse really update by update
| [deleted]
| mikewarot wrote:
| I took a job making gears in a job shop. I learned quite a lot of
| interesting things. However, the pay and commute were both
| horrible. I caught Covid in March 2020, and have been dealing
| with Long Covid ever since.
|
| Now I find myself needing to jump back into programming, and my
| strongly preferred language is Pascal. It's going to be an
| interesting ride.
|
| If you do this yourself, make sure you have planned for
| contingencies like long term disability, should you be injured on
| the job, or get sick. Having a large nest egg of tech worker pay
| is a very good idea to secure before making the leap.
| blobbers wrote:
| Hope your covid gets better. How does one "jump" into Pascal?
|
| I used Pascal in 1992 programming in high school on a Mac
| LCiii, and never really thought about it again. Do modern
| compilers even exist for this language?
|
| What genuinely curious what you could possibly want you to
| program in Pascal let alone prefer using it for anything
| meaningful?
| GrizzlyMcGee wrote:
| It is possible to do Delphi development:
| https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi/starter/free-
| dow...
|
| Although I personally don't know anyone that uses this and
| there probably isn't many jobs for this.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Only because of all the moral hazard in programming, being
| completely wrapped up in rent-seeking, surveillance, dark
| patterns, and marketing in general.
|
| The problem is that the trades are hard as hell to learn and get
| into unless you're connected. It's easier to become a programmer
| than a plumber/carpenter/electrician.
| blowski wrote:
| A few weeks ago, I had a plumber round and he wanted to become a
| programmer.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| I'd go back for the PhD in land use economics I turned down and
| get to work on smart ideas for dealing with relocating soon-to-
| be-submerged populated areas.
|
| It's effectively similar to plumbing or anything else -- a trade
| off to a different scale of problems and pressures.
| cxf12 wrote:
| Software Development is a sedentary life. It is in and of itself
| a risky career health wise, especially into the later years.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Plumbers need to stay up to date, too (and they make great
| money).
|
| I know several.
| duncan-donuts wrote:
| I started my career in trades so no I don't long for that. I do
| think about leaving it all behind to be a musician tho. I look at
| my circumstances of stupid salary, never leave the house if I
| don't want to, and my level of comfort and compare to all my
| musician friends who make nothing, always working a side job or
| on the road, sleeping and eating like shit, and I 100% don't want
| to trade. If I never had to think about money again I'd write a
| lot more music tho
| runjake wrote:
| I work with tradesmen daily.
|
| They put up with the same, as well as job-specific BS, just like
| we do.
|
| It's a pipe dream to think it's some career utopia. Unless you
| want a change of flavor in the BS you put up with, for a while.
| redisman wrote:
| People need to listen to more George Carlin.
|
| Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support
| group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the
| bar.
| mbgerring wrote:
| For me it's becoming an electrician, and I actually do a great
| deal of recreational construction work and enjoy it. But the
| licensing requirements are insane, and that ultimately is what
| keeps me writing software.
|
| Although I think that for a lot of people who feel this impulse,
| the problem might not be the type of work -- it might be that the
| software you're working on doesn't do any real good for the
| world, or have any impact that you can see.
|
| You can change that without having to switch fields -- just don't
| go to work in ad tech.
| [deleted]
| austincheney wrote:
| I have written many such comments on HN myself and seen many such
| comments from others. The motivation is generally universal.
| Software is an immature industry with many beginner experts that
| believe themselves to be experts but cry about how hard life is
| when standards are set and/or enforced.
|
| Fortunately, I have a part time director level job as a soldier
| for my backup plan.
| blobbers wrote:
| I believe the basic gist of this is that the person feels
| unfulfilled and burnt out. We all get that way after too much
| screentime.
|
| Take a break, get a little more balance in your life, and perhaps
| the desire to program will come back. Maybe it won't.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I often think of becoming a farmer.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| When you're walking around with your dog, or in some other
| situation where you're not their employer:
|
| Chat with the plumbers (and other tradespeople). Nothing deep or
| profound. Don't even bring up these work topics unless they do.
| The weather, the Super Bowl, your dog, what they're doing right
| now...
|
| I could enumerate the benefits, but let's leave it as "you'll
| feel better, and so will they." And you'll get a gut feeling
| about them as people.
| teunispeters wrote:
| I took a year out and worked as a forklift driver (and general
| "haul things around") at a warehouse. It was a much-needed
| "vacation", and the social company was good. The pay was rough
| though .... ... but the experience awesome.
|
| The fact I told HR (and coworkers) that this was my vacation
| really helped keep some silly inspiration going, especially as I
| could keep up with them with everything I needed to do. (I'd also
| snap to attention, military style, for the HR lead, the only non-
| military person in management .... got a lot of laughs that way)
| No I never served, wasn't permitted. I did go through years of
| cadet training though...
|
| Anyway, went back later to say thank you and complain that my
| vacation was over. It was a cheerful hello.
|
| The work itself was back-breaking hard but ... it felt good. The
| only regret about the job itself is I should have done work like
| that a lot earlier in life (instead of 30s).
| TillE wrote:
| I enjoy solving problems, and software is an interesting place to
| be. Learning should be fun, not a miserable chore; I typically
| have one or two software/hardware hobby projects going in fields
| totally unrelated to my work, just to solve a little problem, and
| because it feels really good to expand your knowledge.
|
| There are plenty of crappy boring jobs though (I never want to do
| typical web dev), so try to find something better if you're stuck
| there.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| I've considered it.
|
| What grates with CS I feel the combination of never being
| challenged and not doing anything that furthers humanity. If I
| fix toilets then at least I'd be squandering my resources on
| something meaningful.
|
| What frustrates me is I know I could do so much more, I could do
| good things. In the same time period of roughly a year it's taken
| a team of like 8 people at work (myself included) to develop a
| prototype for a stupid crud-application that exists entirely
| because Conway's law doesn't permit team B from talking to team C
| without going through my team, that has basic MVP-functionality
| of being able to process some simple requests and change a few
| fields in a database; in the same number of days I've developed a
| fully function search engine the scale of late 1990s google in my
| spare hours.
| JediPig wrote:
| yes, unfortunately I have golden handcuffs and ever since the
| great resignation happened, it has gotten worse. I said 4 years,
| and they said ok, and my payout is very never work again.
| vmception wrote:
| > I'm a data scientist/software developer and I keep longing for
| a simpler life.
|
| Reminds me of how Stardew Valley starts off with that premise and
| within 2 days you are mining for crystals in a dungeon.
| agentultra wrote:
| I don't think the OP is insane. Sure, the trades are physically
| demanding and in a lot of cases will pay less than a software
| developers' salary. But one thing the responses are missing is
| that simply because you can't physically see the damage done
| doesn't mean it's not there.
|
| Bad back and shaky hands from years of hard labour? Sure.
|
| How about years of stress and gaslighting? Is chronic depression
| and learned helplessness any less bad?
|
| "Don't worry buddy, you're getting paid enough to hate yourself
| and not see the point in living anymore. Just keep at the grind
| and enjoy your comfy chair and latte."
|
| If you're starting to feel that way I would look into starting
| therapy first before making big life decisions like that. You
| might find the root cause of your discomfort and treat the cause
| rather than run away from it. And if it is the right move for you
| you will go in with eyes wide open.
| laxatives wrote:
| A professor of mathematics noticed that his kitchen sink at his
| home leaked. He called a plumber. The plumber came the next day
| and sealed a few screws, and everything was working as before.
|
| The professor was delighted. However, when the plumber gave him
| the bill a minute later, he was shocked.
|
| "This is one-third of my monthly salary!" he yelled.
|
| Well, all the same he paid it and then the plumber said to him,
| "I understand your position as a professor. Why don't you come to
| our company and apply for a plumber position? You will earn three
| times as much as a professor. But remember, when you apply, tell
| them that you completed only seven elementary classes. They don't
| like educated people."
|
| So it happened. The professor got a job as a plumber and his life
| significantly improved. He just had to seal a screw or two
| occasionally, and his salary went up significantly.
|
| One day, the board of the plumbing company decided that every
| plumber had to go to evening classes to complete the eighth
| grade. So, our professor had to go there too. It just happened
| that the first class was math. The evening teacher, to check
| students' knowledge, asked for a formula for the area of a
| circle. The person asked was the professor. He jumped to the
| board, and then he realized that he had forgotten the formula. He
| started to reason it, and he filled the white board with
| integrals, differentials, and other advanced formulas to conclude
| the result he forgot. As a result, he got "minus pi times r
| square."
|
| He didn't like the minus, so he started all over again. He got
| the minus again. No matter how many times he tried, he always got
| a minus. He was frustrated. He gave the class a frightened look
| and saw all the plumbers whisper: "Switch the limits of the
| integral!!"
| bjornsing wrote:
| In the Swedish version it's a surgeon and a plumber, and it
| ends after the surgeon gets the bill and complains. The plumber
| then replies "Yea, that's what I used to make, back when I was
| a surgeon".
| ant6n wrote:
| That's a sovjet era joke about professors working as plumbers,
| because back then blue collar labor was more respected than
| intellectual endeavors.
| boppo1 wrote:
| I suspect the US might sorta wind up there in 10-20 years.
| Low interest rates have subsidized borderline-avant-garde
| tech jobs a bit too long.
| malshe wrote:
| Haha never heard this one before!
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Upvote for LoL.
| [deleted]
| praptak wrote:
| My constant daydream is machining. So far I learned the basics of
| FreeCAD, watched a shitton of machining videos on YouTube and
| researched some lathes and mills.
|
| Unfortunately it is a hobby that requires lots of space to keep
| the machines and tools.
| dv35z wrote:
| You ought to see if there is a makerspace/hackerspace in your
| area. I just joined one - it's got a full woodshop, machine
| shop, CNC router, welding, laser cutter, 3d printers, even an
| auto bay - so you could work on your car. They do regular
| classes on the tools. It's been fun coming up with fun ideas
| and seeing how quickly I can "MVP" them. Most recent project
| was making an old-timey saloon sign for a friend's birthday.
| Found some fun pictures on Google Images, traced them as vector
| shapes, and etched / cut the design into some scrap wood using
| the CNC laser. It was a lot of fun. Just wandering around the
| tools watching people - you can come up with new little project
| ideas. The other great thing is meeting all the tool experts,
| they're always willing to help out & show some tips.
|
| To those looking to increase your ability to express yourself -
| this is a very satisfying interest. Making besutiful & helpful
| stuff for the people in your life is quite interesting ...
| People tell you their life dreams - when you work on those
| projects, there is a lot of learning & fun.
|
| And for anyone who's interested in this stuff, a question- what
| is considered the "GitHub" of makerspace projects, plans, 3d
| models, stock designs etc? I'm looking for that open-source
| feel good sharing vibe... "Is there an HN for that"?
| convolvatron wrote:
| its true. i live in a medium-size american city and you can
| find a corner in a warehouse if you look hard enough.
|
| i started out trying to build a little mini-shop. that turned
| out poorly. working with the small tools seems to require alot
| more expertise and patience than working with the normal-sized
| toolroom machines.
|
| space aside its pretty much free. old machine tools are great
| learners and can be had for not much more than scrap price.
| steel is dirt cheap.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| What about 3d printing?
| praptak wrote:
| I got a 3d printer at work. I'm not saying it's worse, just
| less appealing to me personally.
| ant12345 wrote:
| I did it. Not being a Plummer. I changed from being a programmer
| to working in sustainable mobility (railways). Did an MBA in the
| field, got a job at one of the largest companies in the field,
| supposedly with a fast track into decision roles. This is my
| outcome:
|
| * I now work more hours than I did as a programmer
|
| * I have to deal with a lot more bullshit, politics and doing
| annoying tasks
|
| * In total I lost about 5 years of career, due to education and
| starting at a lower level in a different field (in North America
| this may not be so bad, in Europe they have difficulty counting
| years of experience in other fields)
|
| * I lost 2 years of pay (education), then started work at half
| what my cs peers make. Since programming pay increased a lot, but
| mine didn't, I'm now at a third.
|
| * Instead of a (internally) well respected expert feeling near
| the top of my particular field, I am sort of on the path of
| getting there
|
| I did it because I didn't want to code for work anymore and
| actually shape the real world, but it's not exactly been an easy
| path. It should be considered well before doing it. Ymmv.
| lcvw wrote:
| The other thing that is wrong about this post, that I haven't
| seen anyone mention, is that jobs like be a plumber also require
| constant upskilling to remain competitive. My plumber learned how
| to install ductless heat pumps, and now that is a huge part of
| his business. New types of boilers and other systems also require
| him to get certified. He listens to plumbing/building podcasts,
| reads different sources, and regularly has to do more training.
| On top of that he is on a 2-3 person oncall rotation --- where
| being oncall means being woken in the middle of the night by an
| outraged or panicking customer, driving to their house, crawling
| or climbing into whatever hellhole their pipes reside in, and
| doing a hard, dirty, and sometimes disgusting job.
|
| There is no getting away from updating your skills, or sometimes
| doing work outside of the 9-5 if you want to stay competitive in
| ANY profession. Especially if you want the 200k+ comp so easy to
| get in software.
| drewcoo wrote:
| I've considered going back to school to learn a real engineering
| profession. Something where people solve real world problems
| based on accrued group knowledge instead of faking it til they
| make it, constantly reinventing themselves and everything else,
| living the future they want to exist.
|
| But I think I'm too tainted by software to really be any good at
| any of that.
| amcoastal wrote:
| Seems like something who has never been a plumber would say. If
| they love plumbing so much, I bet there's a ton of pipes in their
| house they could replace, but would rather live in a fantasy
| world instead where they imagine their job is worse than being a
| plumber to aid their self victimization.
| hpen wrote:
| Landscaper -> retail associate -> construction worker -> software
| developer
|
| Would never go back.
| ramoz wrote:
| I should've been a cowboy.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| My brother considered doing that in his 20s. A lot of demand
| where he lives. I was surprised to learn it was still a real
| job, but of course it is. Someone has to ride the fences and
| herd the cattle.
| mcbishop wrote:
| After 15 years doing software development, I started training to
| be an electrician a month ago (in the Bay Area). The two people I
| work under are chill / patient.
|
| Sometimes when dragging myself and wire though tight rat-shit
| crawl spaces... I yearn for my nice little home office. But,
| overall, I enjoy the work. It feels good to do work in the
| physical world.
|
| A lot of electricians are nearing retirement. Meanwhile,
| electrification is picking up steam. The National Electrical Code
| 2020 is letting distributed / behind-the-meter software do a lot
| more heavy lifting (e.g. its letting software manage loads so
| that (expensive, delaying, and grid-taxing) utility service
| upgrades can be avoided)[1]. There's already big demand for
| electricians, let alone when EVs (and level-2 EV chargers), solar
| + batteries, and other flexible loads become mainstream.
|
| My aspiration is to spend one week a month in the field, leading
| an electrical project (and taking all or most of the profit).
| With a low-cost lifestyle, I think I'll be able to spend the
| other three weeks improving processes / tooling around that
| electrical work. And working on related FOSS and education
| resources.
|
| 1. https://www.dropbox.com/s/klt1zzc7zxqwrfe/IAEI_Bill-
| Brooks_2...
| Denzel wrote:
| Are you still doing software while training to become an
| electrician?
|
| I'd like to become a licensed electrician. After completing a
| few successful projects around the house, and studying the 2020
| NEC inside out, I looked into becoming licensed. The required 4
| year apprenticeship, before I'm able to take the exam, turned
| me off. How would I ever be able to satisfy that requirement
| while keeping my day job. It's like a forced pay cut to become
| licensed.
|
| What's your arrangement look like?
| mcbishop wrote:
| I do field work 3-4 days a week. In the other 1-2, I set
| aside time to do software. Relying on electrical work for
| income, the pressure is off to monetize the software work.
| ...This has made it more fun.
|
| Yeah, people learn / master at different rates so it's too
| bad they require so many hours to qualify for a license. Once
| you're a journeyperson and have your chops, you could arrange
| a profit share (or something) under a licensed electrician.
| ...Where you're pretty much "owning" the project, but they're
| available to answer questions and review you work. And take
| liability.
| Denzel wrote:
| Props to you for designing the life you want and thanks for
| the reply :) Happy to hear you're having more fun in this
| arrangement.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Good for you. Once I had a family, I decided I didn't want to
| rock the boat, kept the comfy(ish) coding job so I could afford
| to take them to places abroad, pay for their college.
|
| I sensed you could make good money in the Bay Area in any
| contractor-type field: electrician, plumber, etc. When we
| needed an electrician it was often hard to find one (and that
| didn't, for example, only do commercial electrical work).
| chime wrote:
| Props to you my friend. This is a great way to leverage your
| past skills and experience, get into a new field, and help
| improve things at a national level, while getting personal
| satisfaction. The binary view of 'white collar' vs. 'blue
| collar' prevents growth. Just like farm work has been
| modernized and companies like Leaf and FarmLogs are bringing
| the efficiency of tech/automation to millennia old practices,
| coders branching into EV, grid-based projects is fantastic!
| [deleted]
| mattlondon wrote:
| Do people in the US do "work experience"? In the UK it is
| something <16 year old kids do where you spend a week working a
| job and is organised by schools.
|
| From what I understand, the placements are almost random, and
| pretty much tend to all be something pretty tedious. E.g. a
| postman, working in a bakery, some random office admin/assistant
| crap, a cinema usher, collecting trolleys/carts at
| supermarket/grocery stores etc.
|
| I think those were pretty educational in terms of what shit jobs
| are like.
|
| I am not sure if they are _deliberately_ shit jobs to try and get
| you to concentrate on studies etc. But they do at least give you
| a baseline for how depressing and brain-dead many jobs can be
| ramesh31 wrote:
| I've noticed people in this industry who took the typical high
| school -> college -> professional job route with no time in their
| life spent struggling at all or doing manual labor have some kind
| of weird romantic notion about it. Working manual labor sucks. It
| destroys your body, forces you to work terrible hours and often
| in brutal conditions, and pays awful. I spent years of my life
| being homeless and working menial labor jobs for years before
| getting into software development. You guys have absolutely no
| clue how insanely privileged we are. I think about it _every
| single day_.
| celim307 wrote:
| As a web dev who glues together api's and json, I'd call myself a
| plumber. Instead of shit, I shuttle data from the frontend to a
| database and vise versa.
| tester756 wrote:
| Software Engineering is probably the most privileged job, so
| switching to anything else would be not that easy
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| Its an interesting question, I've done a variety of jobs and
| watched a variety of trades, some are physically harder than
| others, some are mentally more demanding. Within a job title, you
| also get your range of hard and easy jobs.
|
| For example, plastering, when having to plaster a ceiling, the
| effort would be good for boxing, ie arms above the head dragging
| the board and plaster over for a whole day does wonders for the
| shoulders & arms! Walls & surrounds are easier, but you have the
| usual dust and mixing mess which if an indoor job means some
| tidying up to do, obviously men dont always like cleaning up and
| their Henry vacuum cleaners are not a Dyson. Some also do
| ornamental styles of plastering, but I think this was more
| popular 100+yrs ago as there were less different jobs around
| unlike today where new sectors exist like this one. Building regs
| dictate what you can and cant do as well.
|
| General building, like new houses or extensions, lots more mess
| indoors and out, more planning involved. Bricklaying, cant be
| below 3DegC because the mortar wont set, and you can only lay so
| many rows of bricks in a day otherwise the mortar gets squashed
| out. Building regs dictate what you can and cant do as well, but
| many home owners and trades people dont know the regs!
|
| Plumbing, fiddly job, you could be digging up gardens, drives,
| ripping up floorboards working in tight spaces. Biggest risk is
| plumbing and central heating leaks damaging carpets, plasterwork,
| blowing electrics. Building regs & plumbing certification dictate
| what you can and cant do as well.
|
| Electrical, again a fiddly job like plumbing, most of the
| products that can be fitted in a house setting already have the
| regulations built into the product, so its a bit of a no brainer,
| biggest mistakes come from choosing wrong product like dimming
| lightswitch which doesnt work with dimmable LED lights, or choose
| the wrong cable for laying underground. Building regs and
| electrical certification dictate what you can and cant do as
| well.
|
| In terms of mental thought processes, local and national govt
| regulations control what you can and cant do. For example here in
| the UK, there are next to no regulations for laying driveways and
| patios so that those not academically qualified, ie cant
| read/write but maths never seems to be a problem, can still work,
| even for themselves.
|
| General building, the building regs can be a pain, I ended up
| spending a week going through the UK combustion appliance regs,
| spoke to some of the authors and found, to use a software term a
| number of "unhandled errors" which had to be referred back to the
| planning authorities for clarification but they wouldnt commit,
| so I ended up making my own decisions!
|
| Generally the more lethal something becomes the more rules and
| regulations. Gas & electricity seem to be the most heavily
| regulated, then plumbing then building. These are in a non
| commercial setting.
|
| Commercial jobs, like infrastructure, much much more regulations
| & qualifications required but these are bigger projects like
| building schools & hospitals, roads, etc etc, and there is a hell
| of a lot more planning & paperwork with multiple external
| entities.
|
| Work ethics varies, I've seen some turn up early, like 7am and do
| 7 hours, others will do dawn till dusk weather permitting.
|
| Quite a variability in price quotes for a job, it can be hard to
| get stuff written down with trades, dont forget many cant read
| and write well, but the ideas to do a job can vary from just
| using expanding foam, to taking a few bricks out and filling
| holes in walls with bricks & mortar properly, even using the
| write matching colour mortar.
|
| The quality of workmanship is all over the place even when they
| may be part of a govt recognised trade body, but I think this is
| also a way trades get at people to eek out the job or just mess
| someone over. Its very clique.
|
| Dont get me wrong they can have a strong work ethic just not know
| how to do something properly and vice versa and somewhere in
| between.
|
| Fall out with them and they can mess up stuff which you wont know
| about for years, like leaving flux on copper pipes which slowly
| develops a pinhole where water drips out and then slowly ruins
| studwork and plaster work.
|
| Where jobs interfere with other domains like plumbing interfering
| with electrical jobs, generally they will take a flyer and do the
| other domain job even when not qualified. Property owners will be
| put on the spot in these situations and if the owners doesnt know
| the regs, they can end up with expensive problems if things are
| not done properly which is madness considering the price of
| property in the UK and wider world today.
|
| Overall if you want a job where you can do it with out much
| thought, do a trade job, if you want something more mentally
| challenging stick in IT, with coding being the most challenging.
| plutonorm wrote:
| I used to feel like this before I started working from home.
| Soooooo much less stressful, open plan offices are hell.
| Commuting is exhausting.
|
| For the first time in my life I feel like I have a sustainable
| lifestyle that isn't hell to live
| brandonmenc wrote:
| No.
|
| The work is hard, dirty, and you need to go through a half-decade
| apprenticeship program before you can even start making the big
| bucks (which are still nowhere near what a programmer makes.)
|
| And good luck finding someone to take you on as an apprentice.
|
| I remember one of my buddies desperately pounding the pavement to
| get an on-the-job apprenticeship as either a plumber or
| electrician. It took him a couple years to find one. 20 years
| later and he's a successful industrial plumber, but that first
| decade was a lot of hard work - even before he got his first job.
|
| Also, just about everyone I know who does even a skilled trade
| for a living has a body full of aches and pains and injuries.
| That's why the smart guys become foremen or start their own
| business - but they've all got at least a ten year head start on
| anyone reading this.
|
| Just keep sitting in your home office cashing giant checks for
| screwing around on the computer.
| _wldu wrote:
| Every time I call a plumber it's a least 600 USD. I have learned
| to do many things myself such as rebuild the innards of toilets,
| repair broken drain pipes, install sinks and new drain lines, but
| some things are too much for me (don't have the time, tools or
| knowledge).
|
| I just had an old 2 inch steel drain pipe descaled ($600) because
| it was causing the washing machine to backup and overflow. I had
| had it power cleaned/jetted before (several times) but that did
| not work. The rust corrosion had constricted the pipe to about
| 1.25 inches. Descaling seems to have really opened it up.
|
| I used to hate drywall. It would get wet and need replacing after
| plumbing problems, but I recently came to realize that as messy
| and time consuming as drywall is to replace, it's a good thing
| because it allows you to spot water leaks early and absorbs a lot
| of water. A more water resistant surface would hide the problem
| and only allow it to grow much bigger before someone noticed it.
| If you have enough space, drop ceilings are the best thing since
| sliced bread.
|
| Also, when you are not using your washing machine, turn the water
| off at the wall. That will prevent a washer water line bursting
| (while everyone is at work) and ruining an entire room/floor of
| the house. And when you buy replacement water hoses for your
| sinks and washing machine, buy the best you can afford and
| replace them every 3 to 5 years. You'll save yourself a lot of
| money and trouble by doing this.
|
| If you ever own a house, you'll learn to fear and respect water
| (and chipmunks) more than anything else.
| fullshark wrote:
| Of course, grass is greener effect. I will say this urge has been
| growing now it appears we are past the peak of the web2.0
| business cycle and the next proposed ones (web3.0 / metaverse /
| self driving cars) seem less inspiring to me for a multitude of
| reasons.
| davewritescode wrote:
| When I was 15 my dad got me a job where he worked, a trucking
| business where the work was dirty, hard and not well compensated.
| Moving equipment and large Diesel engine parts was incredibly
| tough. I made more money than I would have working in retail.
|
| At the time my parents were worried that I was getting paid
| enough doing that kind of work that I might consider not going to
| college. If anything it solidified my view that college was my
| only option.
|
| I do occasionally miss working with my hands but I'm thankful for
| what I have now as a software engineer. I've never seen anyone
| get sprayed in the face with hot coolant or hurt their back
| sitting at a desk programming. I don't have to worry about
| punishing my body for 30 years.
|
| White collar work can be exhausting, unfulfilling and stressful
| but it has to be put into perspective.
| RoboRy wrote:
| As someone who left carpentry and bartending to become a
| programmer, I must say, respectfully, many of you have no clue
| how good we have it.
| lettergram wrote:
| There's a lot between leaving your high paying comfy job and
| working full time cutting trees or something.
|
| One of my former co-workers left to become a lumberjack. I don't
| blame them, I spend a day or two cutting trees on my property and
| it's enjoyable. That said, you won't make six figures doing that.
|
| Without fail, the people I see making complaints (1) lack a
| family with kids and / or (2) don't own a home / property.
|
| We're very much predisposed to having a family and having
| something to build (physically). If people feel this way, try a
| decent sized garden (150+ square feet). Or build some furniture.
| It'll be fulfilling and you'll learn to love your job lol
| ggcdn wrote:
| Well, I guess I should rethink my constant urge to leave
| structural engineering and become a software developer.
|
| "The grass is greener..." fallacy seems to be prevalent in most
| people. It becomes most intense when encountering obstacles,
| frustrations, boredom, and stress in the current situation, which
| makes sense I suppose. And it's so easy to gloss over all the
| privileges that come with the current situation. When I was broke
| and busting my ass in university, I couldn't wait to start my
| coop jobs. Then half way through coop, I couldn't wait to get
| back to class. Now I have the luxury of living a comfortable life
| and there are no abrupt changes unless I decide to implement
| them. Yet the dissatisfaction creeps in...
| satisfice wrote:
| I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay I sleep all night and I work all
| day
| burnt_toast wrote:
| I left software shortly after college to start an auto detailer
| business due to not liking the job. 3 years later, I'm back in
| software and couldn't be happier.
|
| Sometimes you can't appreciate the good aspects until you're
| missing them.
| christkv wrote:
| Gardner for me. Fresh air everyday and making things grow.
| nilkn wrote:
| In the FIRE community, this kind of topic often comes up. Are
| there any enjoyable full-time or part-time jobs to do in semi-
| retirement?
|
| Invariably, the conclusion is that low-wage or part-time jobs
| almost always come with enough baggage to outweigh any perceived
| benefits as a semi-retirement gig. A job is a job -- anything
| that produces a consistent income is going to involve dealing
| with unreasonable people or expectations or situations. [0] The
| most efficient path is to get into the most lucrative role
| possible early on and simply do that until you don't need to work
| at all anymore.
|
| If you like carpentry or machining or driving around or
| landscaping or gardening, you're going to enjoy these activities
| a LOT more if you're doing them on your own terms in proper
| retirement for your own satisfaction. As soon as someone else is
| paying you to deliver these types of services for their benefit
| and not yours, you're in the same situation you're in as a
| software engineer, just with far less income and thus less
| potential to ever truly retire.
|
| [0] I'm sure some "unicorn" jobs do exist. So I'm speaking in
| generalities here. There probably do exist some gigs out there
| that are genuinely great for semi-retirement; they're just going
| to be surprisingly difficult to find, they may not be stable over
| a long period of time (decades), and it may not be possible to
| find one for yourself.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| I worked as a volunteer in a food pantry's warehouse for a
| while when I was "early retired", and it was great. Satisfying
| real work with real outcomes that were visible ("pallet is
| restacked", check!), in the service of a mission I believed in.
| [deleted]
| ykevinator2 wrote:
| "data scientist" when is that thing gonna die, it's so self
| elevating. I'm a hamburger scientist, I make hamburgers.
| mkl95 wrote:
| I feel a relatively frequent urge to run away from my stressful
| job and spend some time working on passion projects. After a
| while I remember the industry has made me a relatively privileged
| citizen, that I never expected to be making so much money at my
| age, etc. Tech has a way of trapping you in if your work ethic is
| remotely decent and you are not wealthy.
| mattlondon wrote:
| This is why I like frontend development - you get to _see_ the
| results of your work.
|
| It's satisfying to start with a blank screen or perhaps a times
| new roman mess, and leave it as something that looks great and
| works well.
|
| Backend development can sometimes be a tedious death march where
| all you get at the end of the day/week/sprint is not-an-error or
| perhaps just wiring up RPCs, or maybe if you are _very lucky_
| upgrading to a new point-release of a library with no other
| visible changes. Don 't get me wrong, refactoring and fixing
| backend bugs can be satisfying, but I often find it is not as
| genuinely enjoyable as being able to actually _see_ the results
| of your work.
| thex10 wrote:
| This is me. And honestly, as a full stack web dev who skews
| front-end, I've never felt this strong urge mentioned in TFA.
| cablexl wrote:
| This is just anti-work sentiment, nothing more.
| simpsond wrote:
| One summer in college I worked with my Dad as a timber faller. I
| had the luxury of getting paid for writing software before that
| (being paid to learn). On one hand I enjoyed the work... I was
| outside, getting great exercise, and I gained a ton of respect
| for my father. But by the end of the summer, it became pretty
| repetitive, extremely hot, and I was physically exhausted every
| day. Nearly 20 years later, when I feel like I am burning out for
| whatever reason, I reflect on that one summer and ground myself a
| bit. I have it really good. I'm extremely fortunate to have found
| interest in this world at a young age, and even more lucky to
| have hard working parents that supported my interest.
| philip1209 wrote:
| I've been thinking recently on the concept of "deadlines" in
| development teams, alongside roadmaps and deadlines. I wish teams
| asked each day "What's the most impactful thing I can do for the
| business _today_ ", and focused on that.
|
| Constantly acting under time-constraints removes the creativity
| from building. And, focusing on short-term productive gains comes
| at the expense of long-term fundamental progress.
| rdiddly wrote:
| It's unclear whether that post is based on multiple similar job
| experiences, or just the single job they're currently in. But the
| last time I felt like that person (constantly considering what
| else to do instead) it was actually just the one job (and
| specifically that manager), not the career.
| mgarfias wrote:
| Not a plumber, but if I could earn this kind of income building
| fun cars I'd do it yesterday.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| And increase my social surface area for interacting with entitled
| and stupid people while literally having to deal with their shit?
|
| Nah, I'm good.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Never even thought about it. The constraint solving is what I
| find interesting. I revel in being able to adapt as the
| circumstances change.
|
| Sometimes, I even tire of writing the code once I know how to
| solve the problem. But you sort of have to do that to get the
| next problem.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| No, but I left the field once to be a humanitarian aid
| logistician, and another two times to be a dad at home. Both were
| more useful and fulfilling, but paid less.
| dghughes wrote:
| I'm getting more into home repair since my Dad died I help my mom
| with the house I don't own a house. Really I think it's
| interesting and could do it as a job. My Dad was a blue collar
| worker who did almost everything.
|
| I combined the two and I am making a 3D CAD of the family house.
| I'm learning a lot about foundations, sill plates, rim boards,
| insulation, sheathing, plumbing. electrical etc.
|
| FYI Matt Risinger has a great channel on YouTube for general home
| building science. And I watch fellow Canadian Got2Learn on
| YouTube for plumbing.
| jliptzin wrote:
| The grass is always greener on the other side unless, of course,
| you're a member of the idle rich
| maxbaines wrote:
| Why a plumber? If as I suspect it's an example of a simpler
| trade, I would suggest you read up on the skills, problems and
| challenges required to be a plumber. It ain't easy.
| lifeplusplus wrote:
| I think what we really miss agency to build what we want and how
| we want, instead of scrum master wanting to credit us for our
| work
| sodapopcan wrote:
| At an old job, we were next to a window that looked out onto a
| crossing guard who was there most of the day. We used to say,
| "That's it, I'm becoming a crossing guard," when work got tough.
| But ya, I agree, I wouldn't pick anything over tech, no matter
| how rough it gets.
|
| In terms of "constantly staying up to date", that's a large
| reason I moved to a tech stack with less moving parts and slower-
| moving major change. It helps a little.
| MrAbstract wrote:
| > I moved to a tech stack with less moving parts and slower-
| moving major change.
|
| Could you please share what tech stack is this? Frankly
| speaking, I also consider finding something more stable and
| slow-paced as a continuation of my software career at this
| point.
| sodapopcan wrote:
| Elixir. It's a bit hard to find jobs that actually use
| LiveView (which would relatively shield you from the world of
| NPM) but they're out there and pay pretty well. It isn't a
| silver bullet and not without its problems, but I'm
| incredibly happy with it.
| protomyth wrote:
| Well, no since I deal with enough virtual crap all day, and don't
| really have any desire to deal with the real thing. Plus, plumber
| does require an apprenticeship in the US.
|
| I, on the other hand, have thought about buying quite a bit of
| carpentry equipment when I am done with IT. These new CNC
| machines are amazingly programmable and just the thought of
| actually building custom furniture excites me.
|
| I did grow up in an era and place where I learned electrical and
| carpentry ("ok students, in order to have the photography class
| we need to build a dark room"). So, I do know a bit about basic
| techniques, but would probably take some classes to refresh my
| knowledge and learn the "right way".
| klyrs wrote:
| No. Plumbing is gross and wet. Carpentry, on the other hand...
| tartoran wrote:
| Plumbing is gross and wet but you clearly know where the
| bullshit is from the beginning. In software it is creeping from
| everywhere, changing patterns every coouple of years as well. I
| probably wouldn't want to be a real plumber but I hear the
| people who would. And I definitely get the urge to find
| something else but generally trading off for something else is
| problematic as well and generally comes with its own type of
| bullshit.
| aldebran wrote:
| Thank you for the morning laugh. And yes, I do agree.
| xeromal wrote:
| You can't catch ecoli from software at least though
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Joint and back issues?
| grumple wrote:
| You get those from coding too. Sitting in a chair all day
| wrecks your neck and back, mouse and keyboard use causes
| carpal tunnel as well. Standing still instead of sitting
| causes other issues. You have to move around, not remain
| fixed. There's a balance somewhere between being a dev
| and being a plumber.
| lokalfarm wrote:
| If your idea of physical abuse is carpal tunnel from
| using a mouse + keyboard, don't go into the trades.
| Seriously. Go to Home Depot, buy a stick of 1" copper
| pipe, a Ridgid (wheel) pipe cutter, and some sandpaper.
| Now go to your backyard, in the cold, kneel on some
| bricks/concrete, and spend 30 minutes cutting off little
| portions of the copper stick, and then clean the ends
| with sandpaper. For bonus points, consider reaming the
| insides too.
|
| Now tell me how your wrists and hands are feeling. How
| about your knees? Imagine that everyday, plus an array of
| powertools such as impact drivers + drills, rotary
| hammers, sawzalls, band saws, and crimping tools that can
| weigh 20+ lbs.
|
| That mouse & keyboard will start to look very, very
| comfortable.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Truth be told people itt are talking about "trades" when
| the ideal physical profession for them is probably
| something like building boutique artisanal furniture or
| glassware for wealthy clients. A comfortable middle
| ground between office work and construction.
| verisimi wrote:
| I reckon both these jobs plus general building work, are much
| better than working on computers. We have bodies and _need_
| physicality in our work, not just theory.
|
| Those sort of trades do present problems like coding does -
| your brain is still engaged (a bit). However, I think you are
| also adding/improving people's lives.
|
| Fix someone's dirty toilet? That is clearly a good thing. I
| can't think of one thing in my computing career that has been
| as positive..
| lokalfarm wrote:
| This is a very shallow view of what it means to be working as
| a plumber...
|
| As someone who spent a couple years doing commercial
| plumbing:
|
| 1) You are lifting very heavy 10-20ft long sticks of cast
| iron pipe, often 10+ ft in the air. There is technology to
| aid with this (scissor lifts) but it is brutal work.
|
| 2) You spend a lot of time in the air - on ladders or lifts -
| often overhanging the edges. You are constantly drilling
| hangers in the ceiling, breathing in dust that will ruin your
| lungs permanently. And again, you are also fitting cast iron
| pipes in this environment. You will feel the sway and it's
| pretty easy to hurt yourself. OSHA is a joke. I've been
| caught in the middle of a huge storm, since the foreman
| didn't want to let us off early, and we had to run down 8
| stories of scaffolding while heavy material is being thrown
| around like ragdolls.
|
| 3) People on job sites generally don't give a @$%^. Toxic
| fumes? Check. Concrete/cement dust? Check. Crazy welders that
| don't care that they can potentially ruin your eyesight?
| Check.
|
| 4) Your company will track you with apps, often not pay you
| until you arrive on the jobsite, but you still need to be at
| the shop @ 6AM to help load materials. Unpaid.
|
| 5) Depending on where you live, you can expect to listen to
| nothing but conservative talk radio on that morning ride.
| I've worked with people from all paths, so this didn't really
| bother me, but something to consider if you have spent most
| of your life doing white-collar work. You can expect to be
| around some hateful ignorance.
|
| 6) If you're not doing new construction, you can expect to be
| in the ceiling, crawling among ducts, trying not to fall
| through. This is generally with copper pipes, which is
| another ball game as far as cutting, soldering/brazing, or
| crimping. Otherwise, you are often trying to do this standing
| on a 12ft ladder.
|
| Commercial plumbing pays better than residential (fixing a
| dirty toilet) and is often in more demand. It is also a
| pretty good way to wreck your body. Most of the older/senior
| plumbers that I worked with spent their time trying to do as
| little work as possible, and were drunk after lunch.
| Addictions are very common.
|
| IME, people who often are shouting "get in the trades!" are
| the exact people who have never once worked in one (or they
| own a business in it). It ain't all that.
| verisimi wrote:
| I hear you. Sorry you think its a shallow view! but I thank
| you for your thoughts. I have done some plumbing of my own
| - I can personally verify that I never felt comfortable -
| always contorted!
|
| Managers/foremen etc are asses the world over. I was really
| addressing the work. And I thought I picked a pretty
| unpleasant example in dirty toilets!
|
| I contrast the work you do with work I have done. I was
| making a moral point.
|
| I have worked in financial and other institutions. I really
| see no value in what I have contributed. If I achieved
| something, its that the shareholders of those institutions
| were happier in being able to squeeze a bit more life-force
| for themselves from others. I helped the fat cats get a
| little fatter.
|
| BTW - I think you wreck your body sitting in front of a
| machine all day. I accept that coding is not as overtly
| dangerous though!
| lokalfarm wrote:
| > I helped the fat cats get a little fatter.
|
| I think that is just the way of the world, especially in
| America. Even though I have worked in fields that produce
| a more "tangible" product, I can't say that I have
| contributed or helped much of anything. And now I'm in my
| 30s without an education and I only have experience doing
| things that I never want to do again.
|
| Bosses are always terrible, but it's a little different
| when your life is literally at stake. I've had "old
| school" foremen who want to sit and call you a pu$$y
| because you don't want to stand (without a harness) on a
| flimsy piece of wood over a six story shaft, cutting and
| then brazing 8" copper pipe. It's also harder when you
| don't have dedicated recruiting networks and the ability
| to WFH like many do in tech/SWE.
|
| (Just my perspective! I appreciate the discussion.)
| verisimi wrote:
| I for one fancy doing something totally different -
| producing some of my own food, in a more natural
| environment. No deferred joy - more immediacy, living
| closer to nature, etc. Your user name makes me wonder if
| you would find that more fulfilling too? :)
| lokalfarm wrote:
| Have you considered taking some time off and going
| WWOOFing? It can be a fun experience.
|
| Personally, I believe that knowing how to navigate this
| (increasingly) digital world is an essential skill. I'm
| enjoying trying to build foundational knowledge about
| computing & networking for these reasons - and I also
| just feel like there is _so much_ to learn, and that is
| both exciting and overwhelming at times. I have some
| negative views towards the way technology has trended in
| the last decade or two (bordering on tin-foil hat
| territory :P) but I think that is all the more reason to
| understand it.
|
| I don't have any interest in pursuing SWE, esp. for
| financial reasons. But I am enjoying learning about
| programming. I'd be happy if I could hack on things at
| home & contribute to some OSS projects. I'm hoping to
| land a junior position at a NOC in a year or so, but who
| knows? I've given up on the idea of any career giving my
| life meaning or purpose, so I'd be happy with an
| education + skillset that makes me employable, especially
| with remote opportunities. Not having to destroy my body
| is a bonus!
| kurthr wrote:
| Carpentry is brutal and pays badly... but I agree, poop is
| gross. Electrician, on the other hand?
| Ekaros wrote:
| Similar physical demands to plumbing. The proper cables are
| not light. Installation is still pain and involves hard to
| reach places. And fun stuff like crawling in crawl spaces
| sometimes etc.
|
| I suppose telco might be most reasonable. Or if pay isn't
| important electronics. And even there is problems.
| klyrs wrote:
| Honestly, it isn't even the poop. I do my own sink faucets
| and whatnot, and hate every minute of it. I wouldn't survive
| framing, but making fancy furniture has some appeal. But
| then... finishing is also gross and wet. And sticky.
|
| On the other hand: about once every 3 years, I shut my
| computer down and get the dust out. I even hate that. The
| only nasty wet messes I don't mind dealing with come from my
| child or the refrigerator. All else, I'm happy to pay
| somebody else.
| h2odragon wrote:
| > Electrician, on the other hand?
|
| Still involves a surprising amount of carpentry. And finding
| where the hell the wires were run in other people's "wtf were
| these fools thinking?" grade framing. and other fun stuff.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Not a plumper, but I noticed a guy driving around washing self-
| service gas stations. Might not be that great during the winter.
|
| More realistic: I often look at "IT guy" wanted job postings, or
| "programmer wanted" from companies that shouldn't need a
| programmer. One I regret not applying for was a programmer for an
| auto-parts company.
| malshe wrote:
| OT but still tangentially relevant - In the cold wave a couple of
| weeks ago in Texas, our pipes froze and the tap on the outside of
| the house burst. We were not sure about the extent of the damage
| so we called a plumber. He charged a cool $350 to simply replace
| the tap. Took all of 15 minutes.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > We were not sure about the extent of the damage
|
| > He charged a cool $350 to simply replace the tap
|
| No, he charged you $350 for his knowledge that replacing the
| tap was the right solution in this case. If all you had to do
| was replace the tap, you could have done that yourself and
| saved a bunch of money. But you didn't know that was all that
| needed to be done; he did. You paid for his knowledge, not
| simply the act of replacing the tap.
|
| See also: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/know-where-man/
| malshe wrote:
| I've seen this argument a lot. It's was just changing a tap.
| I don't have to pay $350 to just someone look at it and tell
| me your don't have any damage.
| gwern wrote:
| You just wrote, "We were not sure about the extent of the
| damage". So yes, you did need to pay someone that.
| throwaway1966 wrote:
| I've decided that I will soon be done with tech after 35 years. I
| find the tech industry exhausting and disappointing. It is really
| hasn't gotten any better than it was when I started and in some
| significant ways it is worse. The whole practice of software
| needs [citation needed] and [condemned by the board of health]
| notices slapped on it. Ignorance reigns and there is new
| ignorance every day lest anyone ever learn anything.
| Cliquishness, fetishism and cargo culting are rampant and that is
| not even commenting on the fringes like cryptocurrency. The
| scabrous larcenous fucks who want to take over the internet with
| "web3" might likely succeed because the investor class is filled
| with rapacious sociopaths and grifters who will happily ally
| themselves for another quick buck.
|
| It is all shit and it is not fun any more.
|
| Having spent several summers working manual labour and others
| spent working as a school janitor I certainly don't long for
| those jobs. I will probably spend my time on personal health and
| volunteering including tutoring. I will presumably continue to
| write software for my own enjoyment but I am indifferent about
| even participating in open source as it has become, too often, a
| cudgel used by one company or faction against another rather than
| a societal good.
| hickimsedenolan wrote:
| In contrast with everyone in this thread, I absolutely love being
| up to date with the current and the bleeding edge techstack,
| because I love programming.
|
| I chose to be a SE because I knew I'd have fun doing so, and I
| advise the younger generations to have a similar approach.
| tamaharbor wrote:
| My friend was a plumber for the NYC Housing Authority. He retired
| at 41 (after working 20 years) with a 1.5x full pension.
| aaron695 wrote:
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| If you do, can you come and fix my boiler please?
| civilized wrote:
| Very enjoyable comments here, no sarcasm intended. "Other jobs
| are even worse". In my experience, yeah, they are.
|
| Personally as a data scientist I might as well be described as a
| digital plumber.
|
| I wouldn't mind a real dirty job, but physical dexterity isn't my
| strong suit.
| _joel wrote:
| The grass is always greener. I have friends who work in trades
| and they constantly say how I have it easy for being able to work
| from home and not exert myself too much physially. On the other
| hand it'd be nice not to have meetings, deadlines and operational
| work (at least I don't have to do on call anymore) and constantly
| try to keep up with the times skillwise (which tbf I find really
| fun, but still). I'm quite happy though. Remote work has
| definitely made a massive difference, for me, in that respect.
| ryandvm wrote:
| Sure, you hate your boring, safe, lucrative job in software
| development until you become a plumber and find yourself on your
| hands and knees beside a disassembled toilet for the 87th time.
| Splattered in fetid wastewater, pulling stuck condoms out of the
| floor while the idiot renter stands above you dragging on his
| Juul, and you realize, maybe I didn't have it so bad after all.
|
| The "grass is always greener" is probably the most repeated
| aphorism for a reason.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| Somebody _really_ needed to write this comment. The HN
| community thanks you.
| firstplacelast wrote:
| So I get it, but also people are way overhyping software
| development in this thread (which is expected on a tech
| website). The only thing going for it is an insane salary and
| lots of us don't have those.
|
| I've worked in biotech/healthcare and have never had anything
| close to a FAANG salary even in a HCOL area. I burned out and
| am just now taking a month off to just exist. I have had the
| same thoughts about going blue-collar as the OP, but taking a
| month to figure out if it's just general burn out or if I need
| a career change.
|
| I've been working since I was very young and have had all sorts
| of jobs: door-to-door sales, lifeguard, retail, waiting tables,
| property maintenance, cleaning homes from flood/fire damage,
| and on and on. I loved a lot of those jobs, though I didn't do
| any for more than 2.5 years (or even just a summer).
|
| I don't know if it was the pandemic or what, but never been so
| miserable at a job in my life and can't imagine staring at a
| computer 40+ hours/week right now. I was literally staring into
| the Taco Bell drive-through window 6 weeks ago thinking I'd
| rather be working there and learn how to make a quesadilla in
| 1min than sit at a desk, which was the last straw for me.
|
| Plus with software it's all about the skills. So if I drop out
| for awhile and decide to get back in a few years later, I
| should be fine after a couple months of self-study.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Software development has a lot more going for it than just
| high salaries. You have a enormous amount of bargaining power
| and ability to be picky about working conditions.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Aren't those all the same thing?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| People always say this to claim that software engineers
| don't need to organize, but consider a very banal but
| ubiquitous example pre-pandemic: if open offices are so
| universally despised, why was it used everywhere in tech?
| And why was remote work so rare in the industry despite
| worker demand for it?
| [deleted]
| pessimizer wrote:
| I feel like a lot of replies like this assume that everybody is
| an upper-middle class white kid who hasn't had to shovel shit
| before. I've had a lot of much worse jobs than being a
| mechanic; jobs where I looked up from what I was doing when the
| mechanic walked in _with unbelievable jealousy._
|
| I'm counting the days until CoPilot suddenly turns a bunch of
| John Galts into Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, but an
| additional effect is that a lot of people are going to notice
| that most programmers are at exactly the same professional
| level as other tradespeople, the difference is that since we're
| riding a wave of financial scams and deregulation that require
| the internet and cellphone apps as part of the grift, we're
| showered with cash. There will be a oversupply of programmers
| that plumbers will be laughing at.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Honestly same for most doctors too. They are just human body
| mechanics.
| [deleted]
| taxcoder wrote:
| And they only have two models to work on.
| rightbyte wrote:
| On the other hand being a mechanic is a very high skill
| trade.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| One friend quit (VP Eng, startup) and runs a Falafel joint.
| Another (Fortune 500 VP) a chocolate shop.
|
| A PhD in Philosophy I know was a lifelong carpenter.
| zeckalpha wrote:
| As someone who had an air gap spewing all over their kitchen
| yesterday... no
| Vanderson wrote:
| Yes, I have planned to become a carpenter or some other
| profession many times.
|
| But, I have been blessed/lucky to be a one man show for many
| years and I had to stick with one tech stack and my learning only
| added not shifted out from under me. So when I made massive
| changes it was on my own terms.
|
| The cost is mentally going against the trends/grain in the
| industry. My LAMP stack is now back in style, and I am grateful I
| never dumped it for something trendy.
| waynesonfire wrote:
| that is awesome. These are the types of dividends that I strive
| for. Well done.
| jedberg wrote:
| This last summer/fall really put things in perspective for me. We
| did a major outdoor renovation at our house, which involved
| landscapers, plumbers, electricians, and carpenters.
|
| Every day these guys would show up at 8am and long sleeves and
| jeans and hard hats, work super hard, pee in a port-a-potty, and
| be exhausted by the end of the day. They worked out in the 100
| degree heat as well as the rain as the job got near the end.
| Luckily the bosses were pretty cool and provided them with decent
| food for lunch and plenty of drinks (but I still offered them
| food and drinks too).
|
| I on the other hand was working at my desk in my air conditioned
| house in comfortable clothes. A few times a day I'd put on my
| flip-flops and wander around outside to check on their work, ask
| a few questions, and then head back in when it got too hot.
|
| And a couple of times the plumbing sprung a leak just as they
| were getting ready to leave, despite their best efforts to get
| all the risky work done early, and they they had to stay super
| late. Once the plumber was here till midnight after arriving at
| 8am.
|
| I used to have thoughts about how it would be nice to have a job
| with totally spelled out requirements that end at 5pm and then
| you have the rest of the day off. But no more. I'd much rather
| work at my comfy desk inside and deal with the occasional call at
| 9pm on a Saturday than deal with what they all went through.
| gfxgirl wrote:
| OTOH I have a friend who switched from programming to air
| conditioner repair and is much much happier. they say the
| number one reason is when they stop for the day the job is
| over. They don't have their brain running over how they're
| going to solve/continue/finish the current task at their job
| jseban wrote:
| Yeah but even if it seems more comfortable to sit at a desk,
| it's much worse for your health, and also will make you feel
| worse already at the end of the day, so as a desk worker you're
| basically required to spend another hour after work every day
| exercising to make up for that. While the people doing the
| landscaping already got their exercise and fresh air.
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| Did you stop to think before typing this comment or do you
| just fade in and out?
|
| There's no requirement to sit at a desk, you can use a
| standing desk or in my case I actually use a treadmill at
| varying heights inclines and speeds while typing in a
| computer using an economic keyboard.
|
| I did some landscaping work during summers while in
| university and it can be absolute hell on your joints - now
| stack that 40 hours a week for _years_.
|
| Yeah... have fun with that.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Huh? Tell me that when you're painting the underside of a
| desk for 5 coats on a concrete shop floor and you don't have
| the clearance to sit up. Try installing a toilet when you
| have just enough crawl space next to the water inlet line to
| fit 3 handspans. Try sitting in the bed of a truck in the
| summer heat making sure that your ratchets are tied properly.
| As someone who grew up in a blue collar area, RSI is
| extremely common. Tennis elbow, worn knees, hip problems,
| back issues. That kind of hard labor is easy until your mid
| 20s and then turns more into a liability than exercise. You
| can always run on a treadmill to lose weight, but no amount
| of running will repair your knee.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Definitely not wearing out their back and knees
| lta wrote:
| Yet, in the deep country side if France, I regularly see former
| engineer, or business school guys selling fruits at the market,
| opening restaurants or cafe, repairing old bikes in a workshop,
| etc. I don't think it's condescending, I just think it's an
| actual thing.
|
| A friend of nice from school stopped coding to open a brewery
| and I'm regularly considering starting a street food thing.
| Even started to get some of the gears sand the
| certifications...
| all2 wrote:
| My "retirement plan" is a book store/coffee shop. I don't
| want to code professionally forever.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Your contractor, on the other hand, may well have got a few
| rounds of golf in during the day time.
|
| A neighbor owns a painting company. He goes around the various
| job sites in the morning, sees that everyone has their marching
| orders for the day, returns in the afternoon to check in on the
| progress. In between the morning and afternoon though? He does
| what he pleases.
|
| I believe he started the company with a buddy, the two of them
| doing the painting. Things grow though, you hire guys, your
| role changes (and your income too).
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Well, yes, owning things is definitely the best job,
| regardless of what industry you're in. It's not the typical
| path for any job, though.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I know, but I think for most people in this thread, there
| is an upward path for that.
|
| I often wonder why the other painters working for him don't
| go off and start their own painting companies. Perhaps a
| few will. But I suspect many of them would not enjoy or be
| comfortable with spread sheets, business taxes, work
| insurance and some of the other things that go along with
| owning the company.
|
| I suspect my neighbor, like many of us, fond those things
| to be fairly un-intimidating and so he owns.
| redisman wrote:
| But then you're a business owner and a manager. It's
| mostly not golf. As I'm sure anyone who has had a
| business here already knows very well.
| maccard wrote:
| > I often wonder why the other painters working for him
| don't go off and start their own painting companies
|
| I've got a very good friend who worked as a painter, did
| the 8-3 5 days a week gig for probably 8 years or so. He
| had no interest in running a business, managing clients,
| dealing with costing, estimates, etc. He just wanted to
| show up, paint and leave at 3.
|
| > and some of the other things that go along with owning
| the company.
|
| One of the big differences is what happens if there's no
| work, or if someone stiffs you or if the work required is
| substantially more than the estimate? In all three of
| those cases a business owner is in trouble, but the
| painter doesn't care.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Same thing for software engineers and companies.
| indymike wrote:
| > Well, yes, owning things is definitely the best job,
| regardless of what industry you're in.
|
| Unpopular opinion: being an owner is hard. You think it's
| easy until $80k doesn't come in on time and you have to
| make payroll by mortgaging your house, or you have to wake
| up at 2 am because a developer got arrested by INS (even
| though they were a US citizen), or you have to deal with a
| $150K medical bill that your insurance wouldn't cover...
| etc... Or an employee tries to make a copy of your code and
| launch a competing business...
|
| Life is hard.
| taxcoder wrote:
| I wish I remembered where I read this: "The definition of
| business is problems. The people who are the most
| successful are the ones who have the most fun solving
| them."
| hgomersall wrote:
| Ownership != Control. Most outright owners are in
| control, but it doesn't necessarily follow. I mean, if
| you're not in control, you still have to rely on those
| that are not to mess it up, and there may come a time
| when you have to do the dirty work to make sure they
| don't.
| maccard wrote:
| I can own a software company and go play golf every afternoon
| while my employees write the code.
| el_benhameen wrote:
| Depends, but I wouldn't bet on it. My dad owned a small
| contracting company, and while he took the odd afternoon off
| to take me to a movie or cool off when it got too hot, that
| was more than made up for by Saturday morning client
| meetings, after work lumber runs, and tons of behind the
| scenes planning. And even if you do make it to the point
| where contracting becomes "cushy" job, you've very likely
| destroyed your body while working to get there. I've
| occasionally dreamt of restarting his business and growing
| it, but then I spend an afternoon with him fixing a plumbing
| issue or doing drywall and I remember how good I've got it.
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| I don't really want to be a manager, though. I want to be
| retired.
| bruce343434 wrote:
| Don't we all?
| maccard wrote:
| Nope. Some of us are perfectly happy doing what we're
| doing, and to continue with a balance of work and not
| work for a long long time.
| techsupporter wrote:
| I'm exactly in this position, yet when I said in another
| thread that I was quite content with my salary that's
| mid-tier for Seattle (but fantastically wealthy in a lot
| of the rest of the country), at a company that's all but
| certain to be around for at least the rest of my working
| lifetime, doing work to enable that company to do work
| that I consider useful (we're a medical practice group),
| and had no plans to change, I got incredulous replies.
|
| One of the things I legitimately struggle to understand
| about other people is the willingness to exchange an
| irreplaceable thing, time, for a very replaceable thing,
| money, and suffer while doing it when other choices
| exist. The "when" in that bit is very important. A lot of
| people do not have that choice, and I understand why they
| continue; there's no other option. But for people who do
| what we do and how we do it, why chase the brass ring for
| so long? You don't have to suffer at Amazon, no amount of
| stock options are worth it. You will never get back that
| night you spent working on that one last thing instead of
| going home to your partner or kids or friends. The
| marginal impact of another $5,000 when you already make
| $125,000 in a year is very small.
|
| And, as a bonus, not only are you helping yourself,
| you're helping the rest of our industry. Since we are
| largely allergic to unions in this industry, the only
| leverage we have is if enough people finally realize that
| it _is_ possible to have a good work as part of a good
| life.
| indymike wrote:
| > A neighbor owns a painting company. He goes around the
| various job sites in the morning, sees that everyone has
| their marching orders for the day, returns in the afternoon
| to check in on the progress. In between the morning and
| afternoon though? He does what he pleases.
|
| It's no different in Tech. What is hard about being a
| developer is that you are building. The analogy between your
| friend who owns and manages a painting company, isn't really
| that far off. As long as your are primarily responsible for
| getting the work done... well, the expectation will be closed
| tickets, shipped features.
| hlesesne wrote:
| An old plumber friend wished he'd specialized. His idea was 1)
| live in a college town with tons and tons of student or
| vacation rentals (we already did) and 2) just do water heaters.
| 24 hour service and mark up for unscheduled installations.
|
| Easy, clean, indoor work (generally) that you can get really
| good and you can pretty much name your price because everybody
| freaks when they don't have hot water or it is leaking.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| Yeah, I genuinely do not understand what it is that drives
| people like the reddit OP to think that tradespeople somehow
| have it better than software folks. It's like they have never
| _actually_ paid attention to how absolutely grueling plumbing
| /roofing/fencing/etc. is.
|
| "Constant need to stay up to date" is actually one of the
| things I really like about this field, because it's one of the
| things that prevents the work from getting redundant, at least
| in the long run.
| garbagetime wrote:
| Some people enjoy hard work
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I don't think they want to be tradespeople. I think they want
| to be artisans.
| ianai wrote:
| I'd say they already are artisans. Guy talks about needing
| to constantly study up to stay current. I imagine an artist
| just through creating is constantly getting more
| comfortable with their tools. Hokusai has a famous quote to
| this effect - basically saying he would have to live to
| 100+ to really practice enough to be proud of his work.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| By artisan I meant specifically the concept of a
| craftsperson who creates small projects on demand at
| their own leisure, something both like the traditional
| concept of a village smith or potter, or the modern day
| craft fair equivalent or Etsy vendor.
|
| In software, someone with their own software consultancy
| or an indie app developer could be equivalent.
| djur wrote:
| It's just the masculine-coded, "left-brained" equivalent of
| "I wish I could quit my office job and do arts/crafts for a
| living", a sentiment I've heard a lot from friends outside
| the tech industry.
| rascul wrote:
| > Yeah, I genuinely do not understand what it is that drives
| people like the reddit OP to think that tradespeople somehow
| have it better than software folks. It's like they have never
| actually paid attention to how absolutely grueling
| plumbing/roofing/fencing/etc. is.
|
| I have done a decent bit of network and systems
| administration in the past. I don't like it. It's hard on me
| sitting at a computer all day. Sometimes I got to go
| somewhere else and play with some equipment for a bit, but it
| was mostly a sit at a desk and stare at a screen kind of job.
| I really need the physical activity. Nowadays I repair rental
| houses for a number of property owners around here and I'll
| never go back, even if does pay a little less. I don't really
| find the work any more or less enjoyable overall, but I work
| less hours which means I have more time of my own, I sleep so
| much better at night, and my mental health has improved
| significantly. Also I get to work by myself which is real
| nice.
|
| Edit: Many trade jobs are not like mine. I work my own hours,
| at my own pace, doing mostly light work. Every now and then I
| might get a helper. I was a roofer when I was much younger,
| and that's not something my body could handle anymore.
| emteycz wrote:
| Yeah lol... The apartment building next to mine was having some
| reconstruction and the guys working on the exterior saw into my
| office windows (5th story). I started talking to them, had a
| cigarette together when I saw them lighting up, shared my WiFi
| password with them, etc, just being friendly. After a few days
| the guys asked "so, do you ever work man, or are you one of
| those computer pussies?". I agreed I'm a computer pussy as I'd
| never want to do any of what I saw them doing, in all weathers,
| very very early in the morning as well as very late in the
| evening.
| not1ofU wrote:
| "Computer Pussy?.. no mate, computer hacker, and seeing as
| you all connected to my Wi-fi, my rent is covered for the
| next 2 months".... <Trollface>
| emteycz wrote:
| Well I wanted to be a friend. They were cool to me, I was
| cool to them. It was all in good jest, with a bit of truth.
| ;-)
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| I guess but the phrasing that he used was unbelievably
| condescending and you just accepted it.
| boppo1 wrote:
| It's a hard thing to describe, but among people doing
| that kind of job, an insult like that can be a signal
| that you're "on the inside" of the group. It's pretty
| contextual and you have to listen to their tone of voice.
|
| If you've seen Good Will Hunting, imagine Affleck and
| Damon's characters meeting again years down the road.
| Affleck might call Damon a "computer pussy" but both of
| them know Affleck is proud of Damon and would trade
| places with him if he had the skills.
|
| Not to say "computer pussy" isn't potentially extremely
| condescending; just that such usage of profanity among
| laborers is often colloquially used to express sincere
| kinship and camaraderie.
| emteycz wrote:
| Exactly - and I think it's the same among programmers,
| and more generally in male friend groups. It's a
| translation btw, but I think it's a fitting one.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I've done manual labor. Mowed lawns for a guy who had his own
| company, he drove us around in the truck, we'd hit the grass
| with his mowers.
|
| Worked fast food, retail. Been a dishwasher, bus boy....
|
| I think there is something abut the manual labor that gives
| you a daily sense of accomplishment. The lawn work for sure.
| Arriving at a tatty yard, leaving it looking like a golf
| course.... That sort of day-to-day sense of achievement is
| much more rare in software development.
|
| To be sure I ultimately chased the higher-paying software
| field. But when I would see the "grounds keepers" at the
| Apple campus, I was often a little envious....
| supernova87a wrote:
| I have to say also that the "4 day workweek" idea tends to be
| embraced by such same people who have little idea what true
| laborious labor really is and can pontificate about it from
| their air conditioned offices.
|
| And who I think would be unpleasantly surprised to find out
| certain inconveniences if everyone's available working hours
| were cut back by 1 day per week.
| maccard wrote:
| I don't think that's necessarily true, in fact I think what
| happens more often is the idea of a 4 day work week is
| dismissed by people such as yourself as it doesn't equally
| apply to everyone. A 5 day work week as is common now doesn't
| work for hospitality staff, for example. Does that mean that
| we should all work 4pm-3am Saturday shifts because that's
| when nightclub staff work? Of course not. do we argue that
| because patients in hospitals require 24/7 care that we all
| take up 4on-4off 12 hour shifts?
|
| The argument for the 4 day workweek is that _many_ jobs would
| be performed just as efficiently as if they were 5 days per
| week, so they might as well be. If there was a compelling
| argument that hospital patients required 16 hours of care per
| day rather than 24, you can bet people would be suggesting
| dropping doctor and nurse shifts to 4x8 or 5x8 rather than
| 4x12 or whatever insanity they're doing right now.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Aren't there jobs working in the trades that aren't in
| construction? If you're working on large-scale projects, you
| end up running into the "becoming a cog" problem anyway.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Those guys aren't making the fabled plumber incomes either. You
| need to own the business for that.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| > I used to have thoughts about how it would be nice to have a
| job with totally spelled out requirements that end at 5pm and
| then you have the rest of the day off
|
| In addition to your other good points, I used to work
| construction, and it was never like this. Requirements were not
| spelled out, and we constantly had to deal with unexpected
| issues, or ridiculous homeowners with dumb ideas. Timelines and
| deadlines were harsh, and you were often blocked by somebody
| else's work, but were still expected to finish by a given date.
| Kye wrote:
| It's easy to pine for the good outcomes. The reality for most
| people is abusive bosses, wage theft, various exciting diseases
| from exposure and overwork without the health insurance or
| savings to deal with it.
| dspillett wrote:
| I currently work with people1 who quit construction & plumbing
| to retrain in tech for pretty much the reasons you describe.
| The two I work with right now are a dev manager and a support
| tech, another I'm no longer in contact with was a senior dev,
| none of them to my knowledge hanker to return to their old
| working lives.
|
| None of them were top-level contractors, those who plan and
| hand out work to others, instead being people on the ground
| working on sometimes physically demanding tasks in all
| conditions and being the public face of the operation so
| sometimes interacting with difficult members of the public.
| Maybe if you get one of those management/middle-management jobs
| in construction the dynamic would be different, but then again
| you'll have a lot of the same problems that make me avoid
| management/middle-management jobs in our industry.
|
| [1] and have known others
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| I worked construction jobs summers during college (family in
| the business).
|
| On the plus side, it really is satisfying to be able to see the
| results of your work at the end of the day, nearly every day.
| Progress is visible and real.
|
| On the downside, construction in the summer is rough work. You
| can be on rooftops working with materials or tools that make it
| even hotter. There's lots of exhausting carrying heavy things
| from here to there. There's incredibly long hours (10 hour days
| is within the norm, 6 day 12 hour schedules aren't rare, and 16
| hour days not unheard of). In any decent construction job
| that's a ton of overtime pay, which really adds up, but it's
| also exhausting. A 6/12 schedule is basically work/sleep/work.
| Great way to save money for the coming school year, terrible
| way to make a living long term.
|
| I miss being able to _see_ my work. And to be able to drive by
| 20 years later and point and say "Yep, I built that." Don't
| underestimate the pride that brings.
|
| But I don't regret my career choice at all. Construction is
| viscerally satisfying in a lot of ways, but it's not how I want
| to spend my days.
| nkozyra wrote:
| There's something so insidiously, backhandedly condescending
| about tech workers pining for the simplicity of an honest day's
| job that drives me nuts.
|
| Yes, there are almost always jobs with less strenuous
| requirements on time, fewer requirements and late nights. But
| the average tech worker has a pretty good gig. And if they
| don't they can go down the street in 2022 and get one.
|
| Trades scratch a similar itch to development in some ways -
| you're working with a set of tools and generally always
| building or working on the same projects. Yes, it's tactile, it
| gets you something palpable in the end. Yes, like software
| development you get that dopamine hit when you've built
| something nice. But there are late nights, big jobs that go too
| long, crappy coworkers and clients, because ... it's a
| professional job.
|
| Did this behavior start with the coda of Office Space or has it
| always been a thing?
| yourabstraction wrote:
| A couple issues I see. The extremely abstract nature of
| software can make progress sometimes seem very ephemeral, and
| make those dopamine hits hard to find. Ever spend a week or
| two on a bug going in circles with no progress? It's
| maddening, can seriously impact stress levels and sleep, and
| be very bad for your health. I think this is why some opine
| for a job where you step back at the end of the day and
| marvel at the work you did in the physical world. I
| personally know I get a great satisfaction when I complete a
| project around my house, and it's a very different feeling
| from when a unit test finally passes.
|
| Then there's also the problem of not using your body. Up
| until extremely recently in evolutionary history, we used our
| bodies and brains together. It turns out office work can be
| just as bad for your body as swinging a hammer or welding
| pipes due to inactivity. It's really a dehumanizing way to
| live. Certainly you can try to balance the scales by hitting
| the gym after work, but it can be a struggle when you're
| fried from the day.
| simooooo wrote:
| I feel like I'd sometimes like to try a job like a carpenter
| or builder, but simply to try building something in real
| life, rather than our often intangible products.
| cgrealy wrote:
| What's stopping you? You don't even have to give up working
| in tech.
|
| I started learning joinery a year ago. I'm still terrible
| at it by professional standards, but I've made some bespoke
| furniture pieces for our house that would have cost 2-3x
| what I spent in tools and materials, and I enjoyed the
| process.
|
| It's definitely something you can do in your spare time,
| and even if you don't decide to go pro, you've still
| learned a valuable life skill.
| mejakethomas wrote:
| Ah yes, the common misconception that trades are simplistic!
|
| Most trades (!including plumbing!) have VASTLY more stringent
| requirements than tech, are often more mentally stimulating,
| and yes, quite rewarding.
|
| Disclaimer: I've worked in software for ~9 years and worked
| in trades before that. ASE master certified auto technician,
| father is a master electrician, uncles are contractors. I'll
| probably become a plumber.
| detcader wrote:
| I think it's a manifestation of the inherent feeling that
| many of us developers are doing something mostly useless
| compared to others. We know that the world could be different
| and we could be working jobs that are physically and/or
| mentally difficult but also fair and useful. Ursula K. Le
| Guin puts it thus, from her novel "This Dispossessed":
|
| "A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of
| economic competition will grow up with the will to do what
| needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is
| useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the
| nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of
| the good cook, of the skillful maker, of anyone doing needed
| work and doing it well--this durable joy is perhaps the
| deepest source of human affection, and of sociality as a
| whole."
| sonofhans wrote:
| Yes! I'm rereading this now. That book is an endless
| wellspring of reminders about what truly matters.
| analog31 wrote:
| "Half of my software budget is wasted, I just don't know
| which half."
|
| I suppose there's a sense in the trades that you know
| somebody wants something before you do it, because they've
| asked for it. And you can usually see where it fits into
| the bigger picture because the interconnected pieces are
| visually and physically connected.
|
| I get a similar satisfaction from being a part time
| musician. When I show up to play music, it's because
| somebody has hired me to play music, and within the band
| there's a specific part that's filled by my work. I also
| know the quality of my own work instantly as I do it. I
| love music as an art, but on the bandstand, I'm a tradesman
| first and an artist second.
|
| Working in a tech field, it can be hard to know if what
| you're making is ever going to matter to anybody, and it's
| possible to do _negative work_ in the sense of costing more
| than what it returns. That can be frustrating.
| emteycz wrote:
| I can't understand that one. Software fascinates me since I
| was a child by how universally useful it is. Even for the
| more manual stuff, computer is still a hyper-useful tool.
| batshit_beaver wrote:
| I think it's much, much more common in the world of
| software to build things that either no one uses, or
| fades out pretty quickly.
|
| There's a world of difference between taking a week to
| ship a new button to Chrome at Google (low impact, but at
| least high visibility) and creating a project from
| scratch over the course of months for it to be killed off
| by or not work out for the stakeholders (no impact AND
| no/low visibility). This happens with most projects.
|
| On the other hand, building or fixing something physical
| you know that at least you're solving a real problem for
| someone, and it will probably last them a while.
|
| Software is constantly churning and evolving precisely
| because such evolutions are not limited by tools,
| materials, or constraints of the physical world. Way
| better for creativity, but rarely leaves us devs feeling
| proud of the work we've done
| tangjurine wrote:
| Carpentry is useful, but if you are spending months
| making a small part you think no one uses or cares about
| for a lot of money, you might feel useless.
|
| Same things goes with anything really.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| A similar idea was expressed by Marx, who referred to it as
| _estranged labour_. Forgive the lengthy quote:
|
| > _the object which labor produces - labor 's product -
| confronts it as something alien, as a power independent of
| the producer. The product of labor is labor which has been
| embodied in an object, which has become material: it is the
| objectification of labor. Labor's realization is its
| objectification. Under these economic conditions this
| realization of labor appears as loss of realization for the
| workers; objectification as loss of the object and bondage
| to it; appropriation as estrangement, as alienation._
|
| > [...]
|
| > _the worker is related to the product of labor as to an
| alien object. For on this premise it is clear that the more
| the worker spends himself, the more powerful becomes the
| alien world of objects which he creates over and against
| himself, the poorer he himself - his inner world - becomes,
| the less belongs to him as his own._
|
| https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscript
| s...
| e4e78a06 wrote:
| Very ironic that the USSR ended up forcing most people
| into state-chosen jobs. I think it's nice to think of
| some ideal future where everyone works on what they want
| to work on but society needs people to do the dirty work
| that nobody wants to do. Janitor, garbageman, sewer
| maintenance, warehouse worker, etc. A lot of Marx's ideas
| are just ideas, not anything that could ever be realized
| in the real world.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Whatever you can say of his prescriptions, many of his
| descriptions and diagnoses are relevant.
| hgomersall wrote:
| In said hypothetical world, the crappy jobs would come
| with the highest prestige, because nobody would want to
| do them, so the payoff would need to be something other
| than reducing the risk of starvation.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| The Dispossessed was a fantastic book but you're taking
| away the wrong thing if you're using Anarresti propaganda
| to sum up the work. The full title of the book is "The
| Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia" and Anarres has many
| problems.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I had a manager who once abandoned software engineering to
| become a jeweler. There's definitely a patronizing
| romanticizing of the trades in threads like this, but the
| yearning to switch to physical work doesn't have to be
| fulfilled only by plumber/carpenter/electrician roles
| mentioned here. There are plenty of other jobs that require
| more physical work, from aestheticians to dentistry.
| nkozyra wrote:
| No doubt. I think that sitting in room all days drags on
| some people the way climbing up a pole with equipment all
| day might drag on another.
|
| And sometimes you just want something radically different.
| But don't pretend it's simple enough that we - the
| brilliant computer and maths people - could easily just
| start doing it. I think that's where the patronizing comes
| in. Any professional job requires training and experience.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Sure, but the point still stands is that people seem to
| be yearning for an alternative to computer-only work, and
| there are perhaps more feasible alternatives out there to
| the _Office Space_ ending ideal.
|
| As far as training goes- software engineering doesn't
| seem particularly rigorous in providing it compared to
| other disciplines.
| ctvo wrote:
| > There's something so insidiously, backhandedly
| condescending about tech workers pining for the simplicity of
| an honest day's job that drives me nuts.
|
| Agreed. SO recently left a career in academia to get a job in
| tech as an entry level software developer. Says this is the
| easiest job they've ever had in their life, and wondered why
| they didn't start sooner.
|
| Developers have no idea how difficult even other white collar
| jobs are, let alone blue collar work that involves physical
| labor and the outdoors.
| nathanlied wrote:
| Will have to third this. I have friends and acquaintances I
| talk to regularly from all walks of life - from
| construction workers to tradesmen/mechanics, all the way to
| bankers and the like.
|
| Out of all of them, I have the "best" job in terms of
| what's expected of me on a day-in-day-out basis. The
| biggest problem I feel us tech-workers have is that we
| compare our "bad" with their "good".
|
| On a good day, a construction worker may get there, do
| their work for the amount of hours stipulated, and leave
| the work at work. That's our perspective. What we do not
| often see is the time they spend worrying about the weather
| conditions (if you're painting outside, can't do it in the
| rain), or whether this or that material will be on time/to
| spec, or that you sprained something yesterday and you
| really need to haul heavy stuff around today, and it cannot
| be delayed because people are relying on it being done, and
| this might mean your injury will worsen and you might not
| be able to work for a while.
|
| We can get bad days. And our bad days can get pretty
| shitty. I won't begrudge anyone who'd love to leave the
| tech sector; I've often thought about it myself. But from
| hearing my friends in other professions talk about their
| bad days? Mine don't occur so often, and when they do, are
| often not as bad.
|
| It's very difficult to deny our privilege when we talk to
| someone who works all day in the searing heat, and our day
| consisted of turning on our laptop at 11, running some
| Terraform scripts, making it to our favourite restaurant
| for sushi, enjoying an extended lunch while monitoring some
| deployments on our work tablet, and having a meeting while
| walking on a nearby park to negotiate internal deadlines.
| I've often been embarrassed to describe my day to some of
| my friends.
| aeyes wrote:
| For a couple of years I worked at a rental shop at night
| and on weekends after my full-time IT job. It was the best
| thing ever because I got the feeling of actually getting
| something done, even if it was repetitive work. Not using
| my brain and not worrying about anything was nice.
|
| I also temporarily quit my IT job because I felt burned,
| got a job cleaning floors and washing clothes. Again I
| loved the work.
|
| If it weren't for the pay I wouldn't work in this field.
| I'm hoping to quit for good in a few years, switching
| careers doesn't make much sense at this point.
| digitaltrees wrote:
| It may be easy for some but lots of people try a coding
| boot camp and realize it's hard and they hate every moment
| of it.
|
| My father was a corporate finance executive for 25 years.
| He hated the political drama, attention to detail, mundane
| routine, long hours and being indoors all day. He quit and
| started roofing. And loved being outside.
| hinkley wrote:
| Through attrition and universities pumping out CS degrees as
| fast as they can since the early 90's, at any given point
| almost half of us have less than 5 years of experience. When
| half the people don't know any better, it's really hard to
| use democracy to get anything 'good' done. Either this hasn't
| changed much over that interval or the people who are fond of
| pointing this out aren't tracking statistics. Whether it's
| actually true or only somewhat true, I think we deal with the
| consequences all the time.
|
| What I can say is have more hobbies, and perhaps we (those
| who care) should be working to differentiate a genre
| (vertical, size, location, something) as being better, so it
| feels like less of a game of chance every time people are
| looking for 'better'.
| digitaltrees wrote:
| It's only condescending, because you're assuming a social
| hierarchy where software development is more prestigious or
| desirable than one of the trades and that physical labor is
| harder than non-physical labor. The implication then is that
| a software developer wishing to become a plumber is
| ungrateful for their "better" job and naive for wanting a
| "harder" and "worse" job mistakingly believing it to be
| easier.
|
| Would you feel the same way about a plumber wishing for the
| job software developer? Would you call out a plumber for
| being condescending in wishing for the "easy" job of a
| software developer?
|
| The more accurate interpretation is that all people have
| frustration with their job and start to imagine an
| alternative that would eliminate the frustrations.
| emerged wrote:
| To be honest yes I would consider it a little
| condescending. No doubt they would be similarly creating a
| utopian vision of what our jobs entail and come at it from
| the angle of "boy wish I could just sit around all day
| doing nothing"
| strken wrote:
| One of my really good friends dropped out of his chemical
| engineering degree in the last semester to be a landscape
| gardener, and seems to enjoy it much more. It's been nearly a
| decade so far. He hasn't gone back.
|
| The tech meme of dropping out to pick up a trade is pretty
| funny at times, especially when it's coming from people who
| couldn't change a doorknob, but I don't think jobs are one-
| size-fits-all, and I do think some people would be happier
| with a job that requires doing hard work outside.
| jackcosgrove wrote:
| > Did this behavior start with the coda of Office Space or
| has it always been a thing?
|
| No, it's such a cliche that's why Office Space chose to use
| it.
|
| The movie _Lost in America_ explores this theme much more
| generally.
|
| The funniest thing about the end of Office Space is that by
| "dropping out" of software during the Y2k era and entering
| the construction field, the protagonist is just swapping one
| bubble for another, software for housing.
| nefitty wrote:
| The alternate ending changes the tenor of the entire film
| with just one line of dialogue. Peter is probably
| dissatisfied on a deeper level than any job could fix.
| Maybe he would find meaning as an entrepreneur or
| travelling or dropping out...
|
| https://youtu.be/XK43Ureuiqc
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > The alternate ending changes the tenor of the entire
| film with just one line of dialogue.
|
| This also happens with _Kiki 's Delivery Service_. It
| makes the English dub much, much better than the Japanese
| original.
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| It may be self-selecting tech workers who feel excessive
| stress from their job, or, really are disastisfied and ready
| for a change.
|
| I can confess to passing the person holding the STOP and SLOW
| sign at a construction site, and even saying out loud, "Now
| _that 's_ a job I could do."
|
| But when the fog clears, and the paycheck lands in the bank,
| it's, well... nah. I'd rather put up with the stress or ennui
| and have the cash.
| lethologica wrote:
| These people make $90 an hour in Australia. It's definitely
| tempting.
| LouisSayers wrote:
| I've heard the tram drivers make $150k ...
| taxcoder wrote:
| Sometimes I consider going back to the trades (I have
| enough experience I could easily do so), but no way would I
| want to be a flagger. The boredom would kill me by noon the
| first day.
| nefitty wrote:
| I was one of those ad sign kids as a teenager. It was
| mentally brutal. Thank God for podcasts.
| hahajk wrote:
| Did this behavior start with the coda of Office Space or has
| it always been a thing?
|
| A big aspect of Marxism is that labor has been alienated from
| their production in the age of industrialization, so I'd say
| it's been a thing for a while.
| nkozyra wrote:
| I've read a lot of Marx and I think this is ultimately less
| about alienation and more about guilt.
| takinola wrote:
| I think it is more than just condescension. In job's like
| plumbing or carpentry, it is much easier to ascertain when
| your work is done and if it is good. The workmen on a house
| remodel have a fixed(ish) scope and at the end of the day the
| homeowner is either happy with the work or not. The outcomes
| are tangible and quickly ascertained. On the other hand, when
| you start work on a software project, it will take months or
| possibly years to know if the strategy or architecture you
| chose pays off. The roadmap concept also means software is
| never done and there is always more code that needs to be
| written.
|
| In the software world, you don't get the satisfaction of
| knowing that you have done something well in the same
| visceral way physical trades provide.
| blame-troi wrote:
| Nothing condescending here. After my first twenty years in
| tech I did feel the urge for a change. Why be just a tech
| worker?
|
| Complexity is no indicator of worth to society, nor is
| salary.
| bmitc wrote:
| > Trades scratch a similar itch to development in some ways -
| you're working with a set of tools
|
| I'd say the major difference is that in the trades, the tools
| actually work.
| elorant wrote:
| Sure, and they can also chop your hand off or otherwise
| seriously harm you.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Fuck up something handling PII and the GDPR fines can
| seriously harm you...
| PeterisP wrote:
| Looking at all the documented (not that many) large GDPR
| fines, I haven't noticed any that are the result of a
| company (much less a developer) accidentally 'fucking up'
| - they are all the result of an intentional policy or an
| unethical management decision intentionally screwing
| people.
|
| If you simply fuck up during your development, the most
| you'll get in practice is a letter from the regulator
| requiring you to change the fucked up thing; Fines arrive
| when management refuses to change the fucked up thing and
| tries to invent a loophole instead.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The fact that everyone is breaching the GDPR left and
| right and that Equifax is _still_ around suggests the
| opposite.
| hamstercat wrote:
| Comparing the permanent loss of a limb to a possible fine
| to a corporation for mishandling data is a bit out of
| touch.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| Ever since their power tool accident they've been all out
| of touch...
| wbl wrote:
| Having just had fun with replacing a bathroom door knob
| that involved far more power tools than expected I'm not
| sure I can agree.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The tools might work. But then you discover the plumber
| from 20 years ago did something crazy. Or the wiring
| makes a left turn in the space between 1st and 2nd floor
| for some reason. Thee dimmer switch that was $15 and
| should have taken 10 min to install actually does not
| have enough clearance behind it because a drain pipe is
| there, and so you need a special smaller size electrical
| box or you need to cut holes in the wall. Etc, etc.
| toyg wrote:
| Just another day in the life of a legacy enterprise
| project maintainer.
| moeris wrote:
| > There's something so insidiously, backhandedly
| condescending about tech workers pining for the simplicity of
| an honest day's job that drives me nuts.
|
| I worked with the county doing road construction and logging
| for seven years, then was a teacher for a couple years after
| that. Now I work at a cushy FAANG job.
|
| I still miss both of my previous jobs often. Construction
| wasn't super meaningful, but there was a focus on making
| quality artifacts that isn't really the same in software.
| (Software is too complex, too large, and has too many
| constraints.) Working with physical implements is nice. I
| miss knowing the weather more intimately, and being
| physically exhausted at the end of the day.
|
| Teaching was very meaningful, but emotionally exhausting. If
| the pay hadn't been terrible and if I had found a supportive
| administration, I'd probably be happier teaching. I miss
| working with children, being a part of a community.
|
| Having worked these sort of jobs and having enjoyed them, I
| don't think it's condescending at all. I think there may be a
| bit of ignorance there. If you didn't grow up doing physical
| labor (I grew up on a farm) then you likely will have a hard
| time adapting to physical exertion/pain. And you have to
| recognize that you'll likely encounter physical injuries,
| especially later in your career. (In my shortish stint, I
| managed to injure my shoulder, and it still affects me). But
| if SWEs still like the idea, then they should give it a shot
| for a year. Software will still be there.
| version_five wrote:
| If it helps, I had such a "1/4 life crisis" at around 29.
|
| Tldr, trades can be fun, but are also physically demanding, get
| boring, don't pay as well as it might appear, and have a pretty
| low ceiling on growth unless you want to manage a fleet of
| tradesmen or something.
|
| Sometimes I do still wish I was a carpenter. But realistically,
| software has so many of the same aspects as trades, but is
| changing so quickly there is always something to learn, it pays
| better, and doesn't depend on having peak physical health.
|
| The biggest difference in terms of satisfaction I think might be
| that plumbers et al are more likely to be entrepreneurs, while
| well paid software engineers mostly work in big companies.
| Consider entrepreneurship within software before bailing to a
| completely different trade
| mgh2 wrote:
| The grass always seems greener on the other side
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Move from dealing with shit metaphorically to dealing with shit
| literally? For less money? No thanks.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| I'll say this for the trades: there is infinite work. The
| population is getting older, leaning towards old ladies. Who is
| going to keep their oil-fired steam heat working? Maybe you..
| spicybright wrote:
| One of the best jobs I've had was working part time at a pizza
| place in my early 20's.
|
| I made just enough for rent, food, and fun. The job was easy to
| be good at, but rewarding because I was helping actual people.
| Most of the time it was slow so you got to joke around with the
| other employees.
|
| But sometimes you'd get slammed and have to organize your crew to
| work efficiently for a few hours, which was stressful, but very
| fun to figure out and do well at.
|
| I think about that a lot when my current software job becomes
| really boring or difficult.
|
| EDIT: Oh, and I was certainly less sedentary being on my feet all
| day. I slept really really well after a long shift.
| lokalfarm wrote:
| This is more a reflection on that period of your life than the
| work itself.
|
| Part time at a pizza shop in your teens/20s? Time of your life!
| Doing that exact same work in your 30s when you're trying
| provide for a partner and potentially kids? When you have bills
| stacking up, rent is shooting through the roof, and your hopes
| of one day owning a home are slowly circling the drain?
|
| What do you do now, when that is your sole skillset to fall
| back on? Being on your feet doesn't feel nearly as nice as it
| did when you were in your early 20s. Those slow times become
| stressful because you know it means you could be out of a job
| like that. Sure, people might always want to eat pizza
| ("there's always work") but that doesn't mean your quality of
| life is going to increase _at all_ because of that. Your only
| hope out - opening your own pizza shop - is an incredibly
| fragile & stressful undertaking. You're much more likely to
| lose all the money you borrow/invest into it than ending up
| with a successful restaurant that provides for you financially.
| georgeoliver wrote:
| There surely are people who would be professionally more
| satisfied as a plumber than an IT worker. I definitely encourage
| those people to try it out.
|
| Then there are people purely fantasizing about professions like
| plumbing because of that 20% of their job they're unhappy with.
| They probably would do more for their mental health by donating
| 50% of their 5x plumber's salary to a non-profit of their choice.
| trentnix wrote:
| If you do decide to become a plumber, be sure to remember the two
| golden rules of plumbing:
|
| 1. $#!7 flows downhill.
|
| 2. Don't bite your fingernails.
| homie wrote:
| absolutely not
| soheil wrote:
| I think what this comment hints at is the tight coupling of money
| and working in tech. I think for most of us it all started as fun
| and curiosity. We were gravitated to computers not because of
| money, but because of passion. Then suddenly we realized there is
| immense amount of money to be made with our skills. Naturally we
| started benefiting from that by getting a job in tech. Then we
| became addicted to the money and since now we didn't learn any
| other skill than programming we didn't have a choice but to
| continue working in tech. What was once a passion now turned into
| shackles that we can't wait to get rid of. It's sad, ironic and
| extremely frustrating.
| golemiprague wrote:
| Fuzzwah wrote:
| I laboured for my Dad when I was 19. He was a master plasterer
| (dry waller for the Americans). We worked together for months
| travelling around Queensland (an Australian state the size of
| Texas). It was hot and draining work. Over the course of my 25
| years of IT work, on the difficult days I've often looked back on
| those days and thought, "still better than sanding ceilings in 40
| degree Celsius heat.
| jrib wrote:
| I fantasize about taking 6 months off before starting my next job
| and being a barista for a while. My guess is I'd appreciate my
| current situation a lot more :D
| rowanajmarshall wrote:
| For me it's becoming a barista. Something social, where I'm not
| sitting all day. Something with an artisanal bend to it, that can
| be appreciated by more people than a handful of your coworkers.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| Out of curiosity, have you worked a service job in the past? If
| not, you might underestimating how much of an absolute
| nightmare they can be.
| rowanajmarshall wrote:
| I have, but in a very small town where everyone knew everyone
| so it wasn't as bad as I've heard it can get. I fully get
| it's not realistic and would have massive downsides, but
| still.
| umvi wrote:
| I actually think it would be fun to "retire" and go to trade
| school to become an electrician. Not forever, just long enough to
| learn the trade. I practically have an EE degree, but since I
| only ever worked with low voltage, mostly digital circuits I
| still have poor electrical intuition for things like residential
| AC.
|
| Realistically though, I think my secondary post-retirement career
| will end up being a teacher of some sort (high school or
| community college -- I'm mainly interested in teaching, not
| research, so university is largely out of the question).
| fortran77 wrote:
| What do you mean by "practically have an EE degree?"
| umvi wrote:
| I have a computer engineering degree which requires all the
| electrical engineering core classes but swaps out some EE
| electives for CS electives
| Freestyler_3 wrote:
| The amount of knowledge you need for residential is minimal,
| there is only one voltage (ok maybe multiple phase) and you
| should only have to think of load per circuit. Don't know what
| kind of intuition you really need for new install.
| 01100011 wrote:
| A lot of the knowledge is just practical stuff like knowing
| how to correctly use a wire nut, where to buy the best brands
| of equipment for good prices, and lots of rules of thumb. The
| other half is code. The code can be surprisingly complex.
| There are all sorts of things to know like how much you can
| legally stuff in a junction box.
|
| I have an EE degree but find there is little overlap between
| that knowledge and electrical work.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Being an electrician sounds great until it's the middle of
| summer and you have to go in an attic or under a trailer.
| spicybright wrote:
| You could just not take jobs like that. It sounds like a
| semi-retirement job means you'd be financial stable enough to
| not need to take every request you get.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| I'm not sure what electrician work you think you'd end up
| doing that doesn't involve some kind of shitty situation,
| aside from maybe some types of new construction. On top of
| that, AFAIK in the US, to become an electrician you need to
| start out as an apprentice working under a journeyman or
| master. Which means you get the shit jobs (sometimes
| literally, like septic wiring).
| hodgesrm wrote:
| Leaving aside problems with heat, it really helps to be
| small. One of our electricians was about 5' 2" and previously
| served on submarines in the US Navy. Another job where being
| of small stature is a benefit.
| smileysteve wrote:
| A plumber can be similar. In a craw space, I've soldered a
| coupler where I couldn't get the torch to light in the
| small space I had. Yep, there wasn't enough oxygen to
| sustain combustion.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| Yikes. Here in California in addition to size of the
| space, you really don't want to be there if the ground
| moves. (Which fortunately is very rare.)
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Plumber, no. Too dirty. But being an electrician would probably
| suit me just fine.
| akemichan wrote:
| I have worked as an electrician. It's not particularly a clean
| trade and you get spaghetti too, in the form of hundreds of
| wires of the very same color and air conditioners connected to
| the lights circuit.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Slightly off topic but does it really feel difficult to keep up
| with tech skills? I find it's extremely easy. Front end guys seem
| to have it harder, but as a data scientist I don't feel I need to
| learn much at all. In the past couple years it's been... shap...
| and that's it? I don't feel the need to bother with any of the
| neural net stuff.
| redisman wrote:
| Even on the frontend it's kind of overblown. If you're at a
| stable-ish company you learn react and a few missing pieces
| from the JS stdlib but most other stuff is already set up or
| you Google how to set it up and move on.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I think the sentiment behind the OP and agreeing comments are
| twofold:
|
| 1. The desire to create tangible, physical products and
| improvements rather than abstract ones- some of which never see
| the light of day outside of the sprint.
|
| 2. The desire to expend physical labor and use one's body rather
| than only one's mind.
|
| I think the trades would fulfill that but maybe more software
| engineers who experience this anxiety would be happier if they
| pursued some sort of skilled craftsman hobby, or even career.
| Being a construction carpenter is one thing, becoming an artisan
| who makes bespoke wooden products is probably closer to the
| lifestyle (and compensation) that's being idealized here.
| adityavsc wrote:
| No, I want to become a house painter or a gardener. I watch those
| super long house painting videos. And I'm ready to do it for FREE
| :)
| dionidium wrote:
| I am in my early 40s and have been a software engineer my entire
| career. Lately, I can't bring myself to care about this or that
| new framework, but I have spent hundreds of hours watching
| electrician videos on YouTube and have been joking with my wife
| that I'm going to quit my job and become an apprentice
| electrician.
|
| So, yeah. This resonates.
|
| But recently I watched a video where a guy had to do his ten
| millionth ceiling fan install and he had some particular trouble
| getting to where he needed to be in the customer's attic and he
| was filthy and hot and probably bored by this stupid task he'd
| done a million times and in that moment I realized I was
| idealizing and over-extrapolating from the excitement of learning
| a new skill.
|
| Learning to wire my own house was fun and interesting. I don't
| want to do it every day for strangers.
| xzc wrote:
| emadabdulrahim wrote:
| This made me chuckle
| chrisdhoover wrote:
| I started in the trades 45 years ago. Worked as a deck hand, low
| voltage installer, cabinet maker, and service tech.
|
| Climbing in a ceiling at 30 years old I asked my self what the
| hell am I doing? I have a hard upper bound in salary. I'm sore, I
| had stitches on several occasions, I'm a bit battered from
| physical labor. The after work drinking was a short term
| analgesic but a long term killer.
|
| I realized a life time of labor is back breaking and will leave
| me a broken old man long before I should be.
|
| I decided at that moment to move on to engineering.
|
| My days of labor provided me with a great foundation for problem
| solving and understanding how projects are executed in the field.
| I wouldn't trade the experience for anything, it was incredibly
| rewarding.
|
| My office life has been equally rewarding. I worked as hard
| wearing a dumb tie everyday as I did wearing Carhartt.
|
| The balance I struck was earning in the white collar world while
| keeping busy at home on blue collar pursuits. For example I took
| my contractor special condo from plain to fully executed trim.
| All of the doors and windows are cased, there is crown and
| picture rail. Some areas have wainscoting, the knock down wall
| finish is now level 5. There is 4 color paint.
|
| I have since begun maintaining an old sports car.
|
| For me it would have been hard to start on an office and then
| transition to a shop. The reverse worked best for me.
| syndacks wrote:
| I see this not so much as, "let me quit my swe job to become a
| plumber" but more so a fundamental alienation from labor (on
| behalf of OP). I think we can all agree that using intelligence
| to create abstract flows in code is engaging and rewarding. It's
| the everything else that makes us feel alienated: the
| politics/pressure of the company, the "mba types", the mission of
| the company itself to solve a problem that isn't even all that
| real or impactful ie optimizing video advertising -- and the
| perverse ways management tries to sell it as world changing work
| -- m that makes us look to the other side and wonder if say using
| our hands to make physical structures might being a closer
| relationship to our work. A rejection of cognitive dissonance or
| something.
|
| Marx touches on this concept of alienation of labor [0]. Not
| pushing Marxism at all here, just using one of his lesser known
| theories to tease out this topic.
| alin23 wrote:
| Last year when I was working as a contractor for a US company, I
| mentioned to my team leader that I'm sick of tech and I really
| want to close my laptop for the last time ever, go outside and
| start making wood flutes or something.
|
| Instead of telling me that it will be better, he says that
| sometimes he contemplates buying a bar and just serving people
| and listening to their stories.
|
| On that day I realized that not tech, but the idiotic company
| processes and the people I had to put up with were what got me
| into that state. I was hired as a Python backend developer, but I
| was also working as a Postgis expert (and I was no expert, I had
| no idea what I was doing), Go+gRPC integrator, Kube and Docker
| Swarm ops guy, frontend debugging person and I was in charge of
| the dev experience internal tools. It was simply too much to keep
| up with.
|
| That same month I resigned and started working on selling my own
| product. 3 long months later, I launched the paid version of
| Lunar (https://lunar.fyi/) and I again discovered why I like
| being in tech.
|
| There's a kind of freedom that you can rarely find in other
| domains. You can be creative, start ideas on a whim, go into
| rabbit holes of satisfying curiosity, learn to use languages and
| tools that allow you to do in 3 lines of code what you needed 300
| lines for yesterday. It feels like earning super powers
| sometimes.
|
| And after all that, you can also make enough money to live
| comfortably in a nice apartment, small house, or just sleep in
| the woods if that's your thing.
|
| Since that day, I never considered being an employee, and just
| continued on doing my thing and creating stuff. This lead to the
| creation of https://lowtechguys.com/ and writing about my tech
| journeys on https://alinpanaitiu.com/blog/
|
| I'm still contemplating about building a house in the forest and
| start making Kaval flutes some day, but I think my tech skills
| will be a helpful aid for that goal, not something I want to
| leave by behind.
| honkycat wrote:
| not at all.
|
| I respect trade work, but I also don't idealize it.
|
| It sucks in a lot of ways that are very similar to how software
| engineering sucks.
|
| As a SWE I get respect from my peers and family for having a
| "smart job", make 4x what most plumbers make, work from my home
| office, and do not have a boss breathing down my neck. I do not
| destroy my body by constantly kneeling over and getting into
| awkward positions.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I shifted away from EE toward programming stuff because physical
| objects are kind of a pain in the butt. You plug in the wrong
| wire and the magic smoke permanently escapes. No way to put it
| back in. I'm sure plumbers have a similar problem, except it
| involves poop water everywhere. No thanks.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Seems like OP should just go to a place like the government for a
| fairly slow paced retirement friendly job.
|
| They could definitely use skilled people and while there can be
| the same crazy expectations and conflicting missions, you can say
| no a lot more easily.
| manishsharan wrote:
| I do occasional plumbing repairs like replacing faucets and
| toilet fixtures at my home using YouTube video. I hate the
| experience. The water is cold. My knees hurt when squatting and
| crouching for long stretches of time. I do end up using plumbers
| putty and plumbers tape and I am terrified at the thought of
| accidentally flooding my home.
|
| I have a lot of urges but becoming a plumber is not one of them.
| mostertoaster wrote:
| Yes.
| Kalanos wrote:
| yes!!! i thought it was just me. it's probably subliminally mario
| related
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